Like so many Canadians, Candace Schwindt spent part of November 24—Black Friday—scouring the Internet for once-a-year deals. On the hunt for Christmas gifts, the Regina mother of two found some pretty sweet specials: Paw Patrol items for her young sons, an activity centre for her nephew, and an assortment of cute clothes for her niece. Thanks to the ease of online shopping, all she had to do was click a few “purchase” icons and wait for the presents to show up.

They arrived Dec. 4, via UPS: three packages left in a neat pile on her front porch. About an hour later, however, another man steered his vehicle onto the property and walked toward the door, dressed in grey sweatpants, a blue hoodie and a plaid jacket. After taking a quick scan for potential witnesses, the unidentified visitor snatched the top two parcels and scurried back to his car. He made sure to return for the third box, the biggest, before speeding away.

The family’s doorbell camera recorded the entire episode—yet another example of a so-called “porch pirate” doing his best Grinch impersonation. “It was very unnerving to watch the footage,” says Schwindt, 29. “You feel violated that someone is in your space.”

She’s not alone. With Christmas fast approaching—and more and more Canadians turning to online retailers—police are warning e-buyers to be wary of would-be criminals on the lookout for deliveries lying in plain sight. Although it is difficult to pin down specific stats, the anecdotal evidence suggests that parcel theft is on the rise this holiday season. Surveillance videos like the Schwindts’ are turning up on social media every day, with many landing on local newscasts.

In one recent upload, a suspect wearing a fluorescent vest and an actual pirate hat (a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball cap) can be seen swiping a package off a front porch in Richmond, B.C.—then fleeing in a rather conspicuousred Corvette. In Gatineau, Que., one thief actually returned the stolen loot within minutes of grabbing it, clearly unimpressed with the bathroom accessories he found inside the box.

One of the most viral Facebook videos—viewed more than 520,000 times, at last count—was recorded in the Calgary neighbourhood of Coventry Hills, where a toque-wearing thief pounced mere minutes after five Amazon boxes arrived on a family’s porch. Clearly oblivious to the camera recording his every move, the culprit initially turned to leave with four of the boxes cradled in his arms—only to notice a large envelope he initially didn’t spot. The man put down the boxes, reached for the envelope, and placed it on top of his wobbly pile. Seconds later, he was gone.

“There are thieves who actually follow the courier trucks, wait for the package to be delivered, then steal that package within 60 seconds,” says Constable Jonathan Morrice, a crime-prevention officer with the Toronto police. “On some of the streets in our division, people’s porches are so close to the sidewalk that a thief hardly has to even break stride. It is a very accessible crime.”

Greg Parslow of Langley, B.C., knows exactly what the constable is talking about. In mid-November, his daughter ordered a baking pan online; when nobody was home to receive the delivery, the FedEx driver left the box in front of the door. About 40 minutes later—security camera rolling—a black car reversed into Parslow’s driveway, the rear license plate concealed by some type of material. “It looked like the guy was just doing his job that day,” Parslow says. Calm and collected, the man walked toward the door, grabbed the box and drove off.

Parslow says his only regret is that he didn’t get to see the guy’s expression when he opened the box and discovered a measly baking pan. At the very least, he takes some comfort in knowing the man’s face has been plastered all over Facebook. “It may have cooled his jets a bit if he did see it,” says the 64-year-old. “Maybe it stopped him from doing it to somebody else.”

Constable Jason Doucette, a spokesman for the Vancouver police, says it’s too early to say whether porch pirates are more prevalent this holiday season than last. But the force considers parcel theft enough of a nuisance that it created a one-minute YouTube video aimed at warning the public—complete with Doucette dressed in a green Grinch costume. “I reluctantly agreed,” he smiles. “I said: ‘If you can’t see my face, I’ll do whatever you want.’ ”

Echoing police in other jurisdictions, the Vancouver video encourages online shoppers to weigh their options. If a parcel is valuable, consider having it shipped to a local post office or package depot, to be picked up at your convenience. Or maybe choose a shipping option that demands a signature before delivery, ensuring the box isn’t left sitting on a porch. If possible, you may also have your packages sent to your workplace, not your house. “We want to remind people that thieves are opportunists, so if they are provided with an opportunity to take a parcel off your front porch that is left unattended, they will take it,” Doucette says. “What we’re really telling people is: ‘Don’t tempt a thief.’ ”

To a large extent, delivery companies are pushing the same message: if you don’t want your parcel left on your porch, choose a different shipping option, such the types Doucette suggests. Most companies have some variation. Delivery firms also stress that, for all those videos popping up on social media, parcel theft is actually very rare. A spokesman for Canada Post says although theft does happen “from time to time,” it pales in comparison to the more than one million parcels mail carriers successfully deliver every day during the Christmas season. At UPS, meanwhile, lost or stolen packages account for “less than a fraction of a percentage point” of all parcels delivered, a spokeswoman says. (FedEx did not respond to specific questions about theft statistics, saying only that “while we do our utmost to ensure the safe and secure delivery of every package, there are steps our customers can take for added peace of mind.”)

Although it may be tempting to demand that all couriers stop leaving parcels unattended, such a move has the potential to inconvenience as many customers as it pleases. Many don’t want the hassle of having to be at home to sign for a package, or picking up a parcel at a different location, says Jon Hamilton, the Canada Post spokesman. “In today’s online shopping world, convenience is the new currency: giving people the option so they can choose,” he says. “We’re just going to follow the instructions we’re given.”

In most instances, retailers will work with customers to recoup their losses. In Parslow’s case, his daughter received a new baking pan from the seller at no extra cost. Although it took some effort because she ordered gifts from numerous retailers, Schwindt says her orders were eventually reshipped, too, with UPS chipping in a portion of the cost. “It’s such a rotten feeling having something stolen from you, and then there’s the hassle of having to get everything replaced in the time crunch before Christmas,” she says. “I’m really hoping the police can catch this guy.”

In Burlington, Ont., Derek Freudenthaler has done all he can to achieve a similar outcome—going so far as to set up a sting operation aimed at identifying the crook who targeted his suburban neighbourhood.

It all began on Dec. 8, when the 35-year-old father of three was expecting a package from Amazon containing some Christmas gifts (a crochet bag for his mother and some toys for the kids, worth about $105). When he came home from work, though, the box was nowhere to be found. It turned out some of his neighbours were missing packages, too, and by that evening someone had stumbled upon a bunch of torn-open boxes discarded near a roundabout. Clearly, a serial thief was on the loose.

“At first, I was shocked,” Freudenthaler says. “Then I was disappointed. And then you’re genuinely angry at the fact somebody would do this.”

Although Freudenthaler has a doorbell camera, it wasn’t working that afternoon because, in a freak case of bad timing, his router was being upgraded. But on Monday, with everything operational, he set his trap: an Amazon box loaded with one of his daughter’s dirty diapers—and a sign inside that read: “We’ve got you on camera. Merry Christmas.”

At 3:09 p.m., the thief took the bait. The resulting video is now in the hands of Halton Regional Police.

“If any article you write deters one person from doing this crime, it’s worth me speaking out,” Freudenthaler says. “What if this happened to a family where $100 is literally all they had to spend on Christmas, and their package got stolen?”

For the record, Amazon replaced the items free of charge. But from now on, Freudenthaler says he is going to think twice about his shipping options before clicking the order icon. “Criminals are crafty,” he says, “and they know the time of year.”

After a long, tense summer in which lockouts and strike action were threatened, Canada Post finally came to an agreement with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). The reasons for the standoff were many, including staffing levels for long routes (which often required overtime to cover), and pay equity for rural carriers—mostly women—who made 28 per cent less than their urban counterparts. But one issue remains unresolved: Canada Post wants to switch new employees from a defined benefit (DB) plan to a defined contribution (DC) plan. The fact that Canada Post and the CUPW punted on this issue is no surprise. It seems no organization, whether public sector employer, private employer, or government agency, can figure out exactly what to do about pensions. With middle-class incomes remaining stagnant, the cost of living increasing, and retirees living longer than ever, this stalemate is leaving workers in the lurch.

To the extent that Canadian employees even have a pension plan (and fewer than 40 per cent do), defined benefit plans are the gold standard. DB plans guarantee an annual income to retiring employees based on several factors, including age at retirement and whether a spouse will receive payments if the retiree passes away. Under DB plans, employers are taking a huge risk: if the investment returns generated by the pension managers aren’t enough to cover the payout to retirees, it’s up to the employer to make up the difference. Unfunded liabilities made up roughly $10 billion in employer contributions in 2014, and in the 2012-13 period, they jumped by 25 per cent.

On the other hand, DC plans shift market risk away from employers, and drop it into the lap of employees. Full disclosure: I work for a company that administers DC plans. Also, Rogers, the parent company of Maclean’s, offers only DC plans to its new employees.

There are no guarantees with DC plans; all that’s known is how much the employee will contribute to the plan, and how much the employer will match. Typically, employees are required to contribute at least two per cent of each paycheque into a DC plan, and employers will kick in an identical amount, matching the employee up to five per cent of their salary. In most DC plans, the employee is ultimately the investment manager: a third-party investment company will provide a menu of investment funds, and employees make the choice. If they’ve chosen well, their contributions, the employer-matched amounts, and the compounded returns generated by the funds will leave a large enough lump sum for the employee to retire on.

Here’s the problem with that. Middle-class workers—mail carriers, as well as health care workers, electricians, and carpenters—are not money managers. Though investment companies offer education seminars, one-on-one sessions, online literature, and over-the-phone support, employees often become overwhelmed, and choose poorly. They’ll pick attractive-looking funds based on their past investment returns, which is no guarantee those funds will continue to perform well. Or they’ll pick funds that appear safe, like GICs, which offer interest rates too low to keep up with inflation. Some don’t choose at all, and their contributions accrue next to nothing in money market accounts. On top of these pitfalls, employees often forget to check in, and as their life circumstances change, their investments don’t. Replacing DB pensions one-for-one with DC plans is akin to an orphanage laying off the cafeteria employees, and handing keys to the larder over to the kids.

This isn’t to say DC pension plans are a bad option: they’re not, and can offer a great supplement to other employer-sponsored accounts. But DC pensions can’t possibly live up to the false, 40-years-and-a-gold-watch hopes offered by DB plans. Back when middle-class families could afford to buy homes on a single income, and when interest rates were in the high single digits, DB plans could provide a lifetime guaranteed income for retirees. Decades ago, investment managers could make reasonable forecasts when bonds were fetching seven and eight per cent interest. Now, with interest rates pressed into the low single digits, managers are forced to chase riskier investments and are left at the mercy of fickle markets. And where once employers could use DB pensions to attract talented prospects and prevent good employees from leaving, they’ve become an ever-widening hole in the budget. Public sector employers struggle with them, and the private sector has mostly ditched them altogether.

Theoretically, government could try to mitigate the risks of pension uncertainty by expanding the Canada Pension Plan. In July, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to do exactly that, with a gradual increase in CPP benefits beginning in 2019. But even if government were to solve this problem in the short term by absorbing pension liabilities, all they’ve done is guarantee future budget deficits, if not higher inflation risk.

It’s a good thing Canada Post and the CUPW worked out an agreement. A postal disruption would have caused massive headaches for retailers, small businesses, and people who depend on their benefit cheques being delivered on time. But the still-unresolved pension question will have to be addressed, and soon. The reality is, we’re not living in the 1970s, and DB pensions have become a social pipe dream. Neither government nor employers have created suitable alternatives. With this much uncertainty in both the job and investment markets, we can’t keep kicking this can down the road.

A Canada Post employee fills a community mail box in Dartmouth, N.S. on Thursday, June 30, 2016. (Andrew Vaughan/CP)

OTTAWA — Canada Post and its employees have merely reached a “peace treaty” ahead of the busy holiday shopping season, a business lobby group warned Wednesday, predicting little but long-term pain for the Crown corporation.

The agency will be forced to confront lost business, a massive pension shortfall and a parliamentary review of its operations in the coming years, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said after Canada Post reached tentative agreements Tuesday with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.

The labour dispute had been grinding away for more than nine months before the agreements were reached with each of Canada Post’s rural and urban carrier groups with the help of a special mediator.

Under the agreements, which could take months to ratify, an independent body will study the pay equity issue that was at the core of the months-long labour dispute that saw workers threaten job action and Canada Post contemplate a possible lockout.

But the tentative two-year deals failed to bridge a key divide over the corporation’s mammoth pension plan.

Canada Post had sought changes to the plan for new employees as it deals with an estimated $8-billion solvency deficit, insisting new hires be covered by a defined-contribution plan rather than the current defined-benefit plan.

But the Canadian Union of Postal Workers balked, accusing the agency of trying to institute a two-tier pension system. The agreements mean that any such demand has been put off for at least two years.

In the short term, the agreements will be good news for businesses that had been worried about how they were going to deliver goods to customers as the Christmas period approaches, said CFIB president Dan Kelly.

“Certainly it will be a relief for a lot of small business owners … that there is a peace treaty at the moment,” Kelly said. “Even the threat of a job action has meant that businesses have had to look at alternatives in advance.”

But a combination of reduced letter volumes, customers lost for good because of the labour strife and the giant pension hole means dark days ahead for Canada Post, he predicted.

“This deal will not do anything to fix the long-term problems that the corporation has,” Kelly said. “This will inevitably bite the corporation and bite workers.”

It won’t be clear until the fall how the labour dispute affected the corporation’s bottom line. The agency squeezed out what it described as a “break even” $1-million surplus in the first half of the year after recording a profit in 2015.

But while Canada Post tallies its third quarter financial results, the agency must do everything it can to convince customers who may have dropped the postal service over the summer to come back, said spokesman Jon Hamilton.

“A lot of them have now had a little bit of experience with our competition,” Hamilton said.

“That could be a good thing or a bad thing for us…. We need to rebuild that trust and work with them.”

The federal government launched a review of Canada Post operations in May after the planned cancellation of daily home delivery became a hot button issue during last year’s election campaign.

A discussion paper from that review is expected to be released shortly, with public hearings scheduled to begin in late September.

That’s when the union hopes to convince the Trudeau Liberals of the virtues of creating a postal banking service, said CUPW national president Mike Palecek.

“We can now turn towards the hearings that are going to be taking place in a few weeks and we’ll be articulating our vision for the future of Canada Post,” Palecek said.

CUPW has suggested Canada learn from other countries, such as France and New Zealand, to create banking outlets in small communities no longer served by the chartered banks. Canada Post has dismissed the idea as too risky.

OTTAWA – anada Post and its largest union have reached a tentative settlement, averting the prospect of job action this week at the postal service.

The tentative agreements must still be ratified by more than 50,000 postal workers across the country before they become new contracts.

“We can’t give details of the agreements at this time, but we’re pleased that our members don’t have to resort to taking job action,” Mike Palecek, national president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, said in a statement.

Canada Post has been bargaining with its employees for more than nine months, but both sides said they were far apart as of late last week on key issues including pension changes for new employees and pay scales for rural postal workers.

The lengthy negotiations were extended twice since the weekend, when a deadline expired on a 72-hour job action notice issued last Thursday by the postal union. The threatened job action was to involve a refusal of overtime in some parts of the country.

Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk said in a statement that the agreements were reached voluntarily.

The two sides were in talks nearly around the clock at the request of a special mediator appointed Friday by Mihychuk.

“These tentative agreements, reached voluntarily by the parties, are an important reminder for us all that a fair and balanced collective bargaining process works and can achieve real results for Canadian workers and employers,” said Mihychuk’s statement.

The government had faced some calls for legislative action on the matter.

Canada Post described the tentative agreements as short-term. It said they are for two years and that four-year contracts were typically negotiated in the past.

“The agreements will avert a work disruption, bringing much-needed certainty in the postal system for our employees and customers,” said Canada Post in a statement. “Canadians can now use the postal system with confidence.”

Canada Post also suggested the two-year deals would provide more time to look at how best to address some of the issues it faces – without the threat of a work disruption.

“We’re at a point with the postal system where Canadians are using us differently,” said Jon Hamilton, a spokesman for Canada Post. “We’re trying to adjust the ongoing issues of declining mail volumes and increasing pension obligations continue. Those problems haven’t gone away, but we need to continue to have those discussions without a threat of a work disruption.”

Hamilton said he could not comment on specifics of the agreements, but he said: “Some things stay the same, such as the pension, as we look to what long-term solutions make sense.”

The tentative settlement was announced the same day that calls for direct federal government action in the matter had grown louder.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had again been asked to get personally involved, this time by a group of prominent women from across the country who called on the prime minister to direct the Crown corporation to live up to its legal obligations on pay equity.

A day earlier, small businesses that rely on web-based sales were encouraged to write Trudeau and demand legislation to break the impasse.

The issue of differences in paycheques for rural mail carriers – most of whom are women – and urban letter carriers has been at the forefront of contract talks between Canada Post and its biggest union.

An open letter sent to the prime minister on Tuesday called on Trudeau – who is in China this week for a formal state visit – to keep his promise to support equal pay for work of equal value.

“We are asking you to use your influence to ensure that rural and suburban mail carriers achieve pay equity with (urban) letter carriers.”

Tuesday’s letter was signed by 200 women primarily from English-speaking Canada, including actress Sarah Polley, author Naomi Klein and social activists Maude Barlow and Judy Rebick.

It is not known specifically what the tentative agreements contain in regards to the pay equity question, but Mihychuk, the labor minister, said agreement was reached on that issue.

OTTAWA – E-commerce giant eBay urged Canadian businesses on Monday to write to the prime minister and demand a legislated end to the labour dispute at Canada Post as a threatened work disruption was once again put on hold.

Launch of the letter-writing campaign came as contract negotiations between the Crown agency and its biggest union stretched into overtime, and was dismissed by the opposition New Democrats as interference in the collective bargaining process.

While government officials expressed optimism that a 24-hour extension of the talks would break a months-long impasse over pensions and wages, small and medium-sized businesses have heard it before, said eBay Canada managing director Andrea Stairs.

“Negotiations are ongoing, but we don’t see a solution coming down the pipe,” Stairs said in a telephone interview.

“So we really felt it was time for the prime minister to get involved.”

But NDP Canada Post critic Karine Trudel called the push for legislation “troubling,” warning that it would “only serve to stack the deck against workers and prolong the dispute, not resolve it.”

The letter, emailed to eBay sellers and addressed to Justin Trudeau’s Langevin Block office in Ottawa, encourages the prime minister to “explore legislative solutions to the current situation” at Canada Post and warns that businesses are being harmed by uncertainty about whether parcels will be delivered.

“EBay sellers, like other small and medium businesses across Canada, have been dealing with this uncertainty for months,” the letter states.

“We have been forced to adapt our businesses and make other shipping arrangements for our goods.”

A number of businesses catering to online customers have already offered alternative shipping options, should there be a disruption in deliveries. Indigo Books and Music Inc., announced Monday it would fill home deliveries using carriers other than Canada Post, but didn’t say whether shipping costs would be higher.

Canada Post has been bargaining with its employees for more than nine months, but both sides were far apart as of late last week on key issues including pension changes for new employees and pay scales for rural postal workers.

In a statement issued late Monday night, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers said job action in the form of a refusal of overtime will begin in British Columbia and in the Yukon on Tuesday morning if no settlement is reached with Canada Post.

“The refusal of overtime will rotate to different provinces and territories one day at a time, and is expected to cause minimal disruption to mail service,” the union’s statement said.

CUPW initially said on the weekend it would begin job action on Monday by having its members refuse to work overtime on a rotating basis, starting in Alberta and the Northwest Territories. The plan was halted when both sides agreed to a request for more time from a special mediator mediator, who was brought into the dispute Friday.

In a statement issued by her office early Monday, Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk welcomed the extension of the talks as “an encouraging sign of ongoing progress and a renewed determination to negotiate a new collective agreement.”

CUPW national president Mike Palecek previously said that the union’s planned job action would have little effect on Canada Post customers, noting mail would still be delivered.

Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton disagreed with that assessment, warning in a phone interview that the threat of job action was creating uncertainty for customers and would have a huge impact on the business “whether the union likes it or not.”

The federal government hasn’t raised the possibility of legislation to end the contract dispute. During the summer, the prime minister all but ruled out back-to-work legislation to end a threatened lockout of its workers by Canada Post and has repeatedly expressed confidence that a negotiated settlement could be reached.

At the height of the last Canada Post labour dispute in 2011, the former Conservative government passed back-to-work legislation, which ended a lockout by the Crown corporation and put pressure on mail carriers to accept their current collective agreement. CUPW launched a charter challenge of the Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act and in April of this year it was struck down in Ontario Superior Court as unconstitutional.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers made the announcement in a statement issued late Sunday night.

“We’ve amended our notice in a last-ditch effort to reach a negotiated agreement before we are forced to start working to rule,” said CUPW national president Mike Palecek.

The union served 72 hour strike notice Thursday night, accusing Canada Post of forcing a labour disruption by refusing to bargain in good faith.

It said that if there was no deal by midnight Sunday, it would begin job action on Monday by having its members refuse to work overtime on a rotating basis, starting in Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

The two sides have been deadlocked for months on the issues of pay scales for rural letter carriers and proposed changes to pensions for future employees.

A federally appointed mediator was brought in Friday, and Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton said in a statement Sunday night that the Crown corporation had agreed to extend the talks for 24 hours at the mediator’s request.

However, there was still no clear indication by either side about whether they were making progress at the bargaining table.

Palecek previously said that the union’s planned job action would have little effect on Canada Post customers, noting the mail would still be delivered.

Hamilton disagreed with that assessment, warning in a phone interview that the threat of job action was creating uncertainty for customers and would have a huge impact on the business “whether the union likes it or not.”

]]>Canada Post, union continue to talk as midnight deadline loomshttps://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/canada-post-union-continue-to-talk-as-midnight-deadline-looms/
https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/canada-post-union-continue-to-talk-as-midnight-deadline-looms/#commentsSun, 28 Aug 2016 21:53:37 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=917551CUPW said without a deal, its members would refuse to work overtime on a rotating basis starting Monday

A Canada Post mailbox is seen near Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Thursday May 5, 2016. The government announced it will review Canada Posts operations. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

OTTAWA – Contract talks continued between Canada Post and its largest union Sunday afternoon, with neither side hinting as to whether any progress had been made.

A federally appointed mediator began meeting with the two sides on Friday to try to reach a deal.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers said if there was no deal by midnight, it would begin job action on Monday by having its members refuse to work overtime on a rotating basis, starting in Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

On Sunday, the union said its initial plans for job action would have little effect on Canada Post customers.

“Our action will cause little to no disruption to the public,” national president Mike Palecek said in a statement. “We’ll still be delivering mail every day.”

But a spokesman for Canada Post said the union’s threat of job action was still creating uncertainty for customers.

“Anyone who is trying to plan their usage of the postal system in the coming days is questioning whether or not it will be able to get there, and that is going to have a huge impact on the business whether the union likes it or not,” Jon Hamilton said in a phone interview.

]]>https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/canada-post-union-continue-to-talk-as-midnight-deadline-looms/feed/1Mediator appointed as Canada Post warns of pension problemhttps://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/mediator-appointed-as-canada-post-warns-of-pension-problem/
Fri, 26 Aug 2016 17:41:05 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=917191Canada Post says it earned a profit of about $1 million in the second quarter, as huge pension obligation looms

A postal worker delivers mail as an ongoing labour dispute between the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and Canada Post continues, Tuesday, July 5, 2016 in Ottawa. (Justin Tang/CP)

OTTAWA – With the clock ticking toward a potential work stoppage at Canada Post, lawyer and author William Kaplan was appointed Friday to seek an end to the months-long labour dispute at the Crown agency.

In appointing the seasoned mediator and arbitrator to lead a team of interveners, Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk said her hope was the Toronto-based Kaplan could avert threatened job action by members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.

“I am hopeful that this will bring a new perspective to the negotiating table, which could motivate the parties to find a solution and move beyond their current impasse,” Mihychuk said in a statement.

Nine months of contract talks between the Crown corporation and CUPW reached a stalemate this week with both sides saying they remained far apart on key issues including pay scales for rural letter carriers and proposed changes to pensions for future employees.

Adding fuel to its argument that its ability to meet the union’s contract demands is severely restricted, Canada Post revealed Friday that it earned a profit of about $1 million in the second quarter of operations this year, a result it termed “essentially break-even” compared with a before-tax loss of $31 million during the same period a year ago.

It credited recent cost-cutting and a growing parcel delivery business for the small profit.

A customer arrives at a Canada Post post office as an ongoing labour dispute between the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and Canada Post continues, on Tuesday, July 5, 2016 in Ottawa. (Justin Tang/CP)

However, the fiscal black ink was far overshadowed by a daunting pension obligation, Canada Post warned.

“Canada Post’s pension solvency deficit . . . is estimated at $8.1 billion as of July 1, 2016, up from $6.1 billion at December 31, 2015 (using the market value of plan assets),” the agency said.

“The large size and volatility of this obligation compared to the corporation’s revenue and profit presents a major challenge to the corporation’s financial self-sustainability.”

A Canada Post employee fills a community mail box in Dartmouth, N.S. on Thursday, June 30, 2016. (Andrew Vaughan/CP)

OTTAWA – Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk said Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers will begin working with a special mediator Friday morning in the face of a union threat of job action.

“In an attempt to push the two parties, help them facilitate a mediated, negotiated settlement, we’ve got a special mediator coming in who will start working with both parties tomorrow morning,” Mihychuk said Thursday evening in Saguenay, Que., where she was attending the Liberal summer caucus retreat.

It was not immediately clear whether the action would result in a disruption of mail and parcel deliveries, something that — if it does happen — could come as early as next week.

The union said the notice, delivered to management just hours before a strike mandate was set to expire, “listed anticipated job actions” but stopped short of a full-blown walkout. The union hasn’t said exactly what actions it was planning.

The notice puts postal carriers in a legal strike position by Aug. 28.

In a statement, CUPW national president Mike Palecek said Canada Post forced the union’s hand by refusing to accept a request from the federal labour minister to continue negotiations under a 24-hour deadline extension with the help of a special mediator.

“This was an eleventh-hour intervention from the government to avoid a dispute and of course we said, ‘Yes,'” said Palecek.

“From the outset, our goal has been a negotiated collective agreement without service disruptions. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Canada Post, whose president and CEO Deepak Chopra refused the minister’s request.”

But a spokesman for the agency said that was not the case.

“Canada Post will fully co-operate in the (mediation) process,” Jon Hamilton said in an email.

“We hope that the assistance of a neutral third party will help both parties address the real challenges facing the postal service caused by declining mail volumes and increasing pension obligations.”

Had it expired, Canada Post employees would likely have had to vote to approve another mandate, a costly process that could take up to two months to complete.

CUPW had asked the agency to allow an extension of the mandate, a request that was refused as “inappropriate.”

The two sides had been in sometimes bitter negotiations for more than nine months but were still far apart on key issues, including pay equity for rural carriers and proposed changes to the Canada Post pension plan, despite days of intensive talks that carried through last weekend.

CUPW offered a glimmer of hope Thursday that a strike could be averted, saying it’s still prepared to talk.

“We are still willing to withdraw our notice if Canada Post agrees to an extension,” said Palecek.

The Crown corporation also has the option to lock out workers.

A pay equity issue pitting rural and urban carriers against each other and a proposed move from a defined benefit pension plan to a defined contribution plan for new employees are the main stumbling blocks in the dispute.

The union claims rural postal workers earn, on average, nearly 30 per cent less than city carriers.

Other issues revolve around part-time and temporary work, staffing improvements and the possible closure of nearly 500 retail postal outlets that could result in the elimination of up to 1,200 full-time jobs that are currently protected.

Although Mihychuk hoped the latest effort would bring results over the weekend, she cautioned that it might not work.

“Canadians need to get prepared for a potential work stoppage,” she said.

A Canada Post employee fills a community mail box in Dartmouth, N.S. on Thursday, June 30, 2016. (Andrew Vaughan/CP)

OTTAWA – An 11th-hour effort was underway Thursday to avert a work stoppage at Canada Post, even as both sides in the labour dispute dug in their heels, declaring an apparent impasse.

With a strike mandate set to expire at midnight, the federal government stepped in, saying it would appoint a special mediator in hopes of breaking the stalemate.

Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk offered the mediation service late Wednesday after months of bitter disagreement, and encouraged both sides to come together.

“I expect both parties to work with this special mediator to come to a resolution and avoid a work stoppage,” Mihychuk said in a brief statement.

“I continue to closely monitor the situation.”

Officials from both Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers appeared to go into a media lockdown shortly after the minister’s announcement, refusing to say whether there was any room for movement in the talks.

But the union said it was retaining its right to serve the Crown corporation with a 72-hour strike notice should the mediation effort fail before midnight.

As of late Wednesday, the union was accusing Canada Post of stalling the talks by continuing to make unacceptable demands.

The Crown agency also complained Wednesday that union bargainers were being unrealistic.

“The union continues to press for more than $1 billion in demands with no appreciation for the current and troubling future state of the postal service caused by declining mail volumes and increasing pension obligations,” said Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton.

“Canada Post remains committed to negotiating agreements that are fair to our employees, and allow us to continue to provide affordable pricing and service to Canadians.”

A pay equity issue pitting rural and urban carriers against each other and a proposed move from a defined benefit pension plan to a defined contribution plan for new employees are the main stumbling blocks in the dispute.

The union claims rural postal workers earn, on average, nearly 30 per cent less than city carriers.

“Canada Post’s proposal on pay equity (for rural carriers) was nothing more than an attempt to complicate and delay that process,” the union told its members in a statement.

“Canada Post wants to drag out pay equity with binding arbitration, a process that could take years or even decades.”

Other issues include “precarious part-time and temporary employment, no improvements in staffing, the ability to close all 493 protected CUPW staffed retail locations eliminating up to 1,200 full-time jobs,” the union said.

Should the union give formal notice of a strike, mail and parcel deliveries could be disrupted by as early as Monday.

The Crown corporation also has the option to lock out workers after Thursday.

]]>‘Movement’ between Canada Post and unionhttps://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/movement-between-canada-post-and-union/
https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/movement-between-canada-post-and-union/#commentsSun, 10 Jul 2016 18:13:36 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=898389Canada Post be in a legal position to lock out the 50,000 unionized workers starting Monday at 12:01 a.m.

]]>OTTAWA – A proposed 30-day negotiating truce between Canada Post and its largest union has raised a glimmer of hope that mail will continue to flow next week.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers, facing being locked out by their employer on Monday, put out the idea Friday morning in hopes the month-long cooling off period would keep packages and mail moving under the old contract while “intensive negotiations” continue.

The union also said it was willing to drop a formal complaint that Canada Post had refused to negotiate fairly if the Crown corporation agreed to the 30-day truce.

Canada Post has countered the union proposal, saying it is willing to continue bargaining for another month but only if the union agrees to binding arbitration in the event a deal can’t be reached – a proposition CUPW had previously rejected.

Without a truce or deal, Canada Post will be in a legal position to lock out the 50,000 unionized employees starting Monday at 12:01 a.m. ET, after pushing back a Friday ultimatum.

“Our members, their families and all Canadians do not deserve to have this threat of a lockout ‘looming’ over our heads from a profitable public service,” CUPW national president Mike Palecek said in a statement.

“Postal workers want to work and people need to know that it’s safe to use the mail system.”

In a statement, the postal service said binding arbitration would eliminate uncertainty for workers and for customers, who are already moving business to private couriers.

“What Canada Post has put forward is a reasonable approach that will end the uncertainty immediately and allow for meaningful discussions at the bargaining tables,” the statement said.

The union rejected binding arbitration earlier this week after Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk floated the idea to both parties.

The two sides appear to be far apart on several major issues after seven months of negotiations, including 60 days of conciliation talks and more than 30 days with federal mediators.

The sticking points remain a union request to increase wages for rural and suburban mail carriers who are paid about 30 per cent less than their urban counterparts, and a Canada Post request for pension changes for new hires designed to save costs over time.

]]>Canada Post work stoppage: The difference between a lockout and a strikehttps://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/canada-post-work-stoppage-the-difference-between-a-lockout-and-a-strike/
Thu, 07 Jul 2016 20:31:17 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=897483By now, Canadians know they might not be getting mail on Monday—but there’s some confusion about exactly why

By now, you’ve probably heard that there’s an ongoing labour dispute between Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. It’s likely going to mean a stoppage of work on Monday, but—contrary to popular belief—that’s not because postal workers will be “on strike.” It will be because they’ve been “locked out” by Canada Post. The terms are not interchangeable.

The difference between a strike and lockout is not always clear, as customers will likely focus on the lack of service itself, rather than the nuances of why it is occurring. Nevertheless, it is an important distinction to understand.

A strike occurs when workers collectively decide to stop working. A lockout, on the other hand, is when a company’s management chooses to stop employees from working, occasionally going so far as to physically bar them from the premises (hence the name).

So, in the current labour dispute between Canada Post and CUPW, it is Canada Post that has issued a lockout notice, that will likely come into effect on Monday at 12:01 a.m. Both Canada Post and Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuck are hoping that CUPW agrees to binding arbitration (in which an outside arbitrator would review the dispute and arrive at a decision that both parties would be bound to accept) before the proposed lockout deadline. However, as of Thursday morning, CUPW had rejected the proposal.

In summary: a work stoppage seems likely to occur this Monday–but it will because Canada Post has locked its employees out, not because they walked off the job.

A Canada Post employee fills a community mail box in Dartmouth, N.S. on Thursday, June 30, 2016. (Andrew Vaughan/CP)

OTTAWA – Canada Post’s largest union has rejected a proposal from the federal labour minister to undergo binding arbitration to avoid a potential work stoppage.

But the threat of that work stoppage has been delayed — at least until Monday.

Canada Post has extended its lockout notice to Monday at 12:01 a.m. ET and said it would be willing to submit to arbitration in an effort to resolve the ongoing dispute.

The deadline had initially been set for Friday.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers said in a statement that it has “politely declined” the suggestion from Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk for binding arbitration, calling it a “matter of principle.”

Instead, the union hopes to reach a negotiated settlement.

Canada Post said in a statement that it was prepared to go to binding arbitration as a way to reach “an acceptable resolution” for both sides.

The Crown corporation said the uncertainty caused by the ongoing impasse in negotiations is having a “severe impact” on business as e-commerce companies shift their shipping to private couriers.

Canada Post said the two sides “remain far apart on key issues” after seven months of negotiations.

Canada Post and the union remain at loggerheads on two big issues: CUPW’s request for wage increases for rural mail carriers and the pension changes Canada Post says it needs to reduce costs.

The union is now accusing Canada Post of bargaining in bad faith.

CUPW says it filed a formal complaint Wednesday with the Canada Industrial Relations Board alleging that Canada Post has refused to negotiate on the offer the union tabled a week before the union was in a legal position to strike and the corporation in a legal position to lock out workers.

The complaint also alleges that managers have been “making threats and spreading disinformation” to union members.

A note on the union’s website says the two sides met briefly Wednesday in the presence of mediators to discuss a range of issues, but there was no “major progress” made.

]]>https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/postal-workers-union-refuses-arbitration-with-canada-post/feed/2Google Trends tracks concern for Canada Post labour disputehttps://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/are-people-worried-about-a-canada-post-strike-ask-google/
https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/are-people-worried-about-a-canada-post-strike-ask-google/#commentsWed, 06 Jul 2016 19:41:06 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=896925Canada Post says the threat of a work stoppage has had more impact on business than an actual stoppage

A Canada Post mailbox is seen near Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Thursday May 5, 2016. The government announced it will review Canada Posts operations. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Technology has changed the way Canadians communicate dramatically over the five short years since labour unrest last shut down Canada Post mail delivery. Social media has crept into all aspects of our lives. Canadians send more than 300 million text messages a day, up by 40 per cent since 2011. Meanwhile Facetime, Apple’s now ubiquitous live video chat app, had only just been launched. So it makes sense to think Canadians might be less panicked at the thought of being denied snail mail this time around.

That conclusion would be wrong, at least if Google is an accurate indicator of what’s on Canadians’ minds. Using the search engine’s Google Trends tool—which tracks the intensity of interest in a given topic relative to other searches—Canadians appear to be considerably more interested in this looming postal lockout than they were in 2011, with search interest roughly 20 per cent higher this week than during the week when the lockout began in five years ago. (The second peak in search activity in 2011 accompanied the former Conservative government’s decision to impose back-to-work legislation.)

Surprised? Don’t be. In the same way technology has changed how we communicate, it’s also revolutionizing how we shop, with more and more people ordering goods online for delivery to their homes—via Canada Post.

Since 2011, Canada Post has increased its parcel delivery business from 94 million domestic parcels to 133 million, establishing itself as the country’s top service provider. Until recently the Crown corporation was delivering two out of three domestic parcels in Canada. However now, under the shadow of a possible lockout, it’s lost 75 per cent of the business coming from its largest e-commerce customers.

“Just the threat of the strike has had as much, or not more, impact as an actual strike just a few years ago,” says Jon Hamilton, a spokesperson for Canada Post. “It’s that uncertainty.” Rotating strikes in 2011 culminated in a three-week lockout, only resolved when the federal government tabled back-to-work legislation—leading to the highest point of interest in “Canada Post strike” on Google Trends.

Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers are again butting heads at the bargaining table—Canada Post saying it can’t afford the added cost of $1 billion CUPW is demanding. The ongoing dispute, and the possibility of a work stoppage as early as Friday, has forced Canada Post’s largest e-commerce customers—businesses who use Canada Post to deliver their goods—to make contingency plans.

“There’s no guarantee of any of that business is coming back,” Hamilton says. “Even more so if we have to return with a big jump in prices to pay for demands to get back in business.”

Even though the trending search term is “Canada Post strike,” CUPW is pressing the importance of distinguishing between a strike and a lockout—which is what’s currently being threatened by Canada Post. “A strike is when a worker withdraws their labour until they get x, y, and z,” says Mike Palecek, national president of CUPW. “A lockout is when an employer locks its doors and says you can’t come in until you reach an agreement.” He says this confusion is being caused intentionally by Canada Post in an attempt to provoke the workers into striking, and that CUPW has no intention of issuing a strike notice.

If Canada Post meets CUPW’s demands, Hamilton says it would force the corporation to increase shipping costs and make it harder to regain its status as the largest parcel delivery company in the country. The volume of letters delivered by the service has been on steady decline since 2006, and the only thing keeping the corporation competitive is its parcel delivery business.

“We can buy labour peace at a billion dollars, but then we’d be out of the marketplace,” he says. “The days of a monopoly are gone.”

While Palecek is definitely concerned that Canadians are taking their business elsewhere, he says the union has been sounding the alarm for months that Canada Post was preparing for a labour dispute. “It’s Canada Post that’s issued a lockout notice,” he says. “They’re the ones driving their business away.”

Purolator—of which Canada Post owns 91 per cent—is one company reaping the benefits of a work stoppage. In a statement to Maclean’s the courier company said it was already experiencing a significant increase in shipping demands: “Purolator is prepared, and has been in conversations with our current customers on contingency plans – which include additional staff and overtime hours – to ensure optimal service in the event of a labour disruption.”

UPS Canada issued a similar statement on its website. It’s also been tweeting to worried Canadian Twitter users to switch to UPS for their delivery service. Shoppers have been taking to the platform to reach out to large e-commerce companies like Amazon and TicketMaster, and check if their orders are going to be delayed in the event of a work stoppage. And e-commerce companies, in return, are tweeting to their customers letting them know about delays, and in some cases, complete suspension of service.

As big of a role that the Internet plays in Canadian commerce and communication, there are still people who rely on Canada Post for good, old fashioned letter mail service. In N.W.T., Yukon, and Nunavut, the intensity of searches for “Canada Post strike” relative to other search topics is significantly higher than the rest of Canada, because remote areas are more likely to use Canada Post to pay bills and send letters.

The fact a larger number of people are googling the work stoppage before it even happens, whether they’re concerned about letter or parcel delivery, means they understand the implications of a delivery disruption; they remember 2011. So instead of waiting for it to happen, they’re taking the proper measures to ensure their mail doesn’t sit in dusty mailrooms for days, perhaps weeks. And if or when the lockout happens, the search intensity will likely increase even more.

“I can’t guarantee that somebody’s going to get something on Monday that they ordered on Friday,” Hamilton says, “so they’re going to go somewhere that can.”

A Canada Post mailbox is seen near Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Thursday May 5, 2016. The government announced it will review Canada Posts operations. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

OTTAWA — Canada Post and its largest union have no planned negotiating sessions, making it more and more unlikely the two sides will come to an agreement ahead of Friday when a work stoppage becomes possible.

The two sides remain at loggerheads on the union’s request for wage increases for rural mail carriers and the pension changes Canada Post says it needs to reduce costs.

Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton says the two sides couldn’t be further apart, but “we obviously want to talk.”

The fractious relationship between the Crown corporation and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, which represents about 50,000 staff at Canada Post, should have come as no surprise to the government.

Public Services Minister Judy Foote was warned three months ago that contract negotiations between Canada Post and CUPW were likely to lead to a strike or lockout, with officials advising the government to avoid taking sides in bargaining.

Foote was told in an April briefing note that negotiations “will likely be long and arduous” and that they “may lead to labour disruptions as has occurred in about half of previous negotiations between parties.”

The briefing material, previously released under the Access to Information Act, suggests that Foote meet with the union, but not talk about contract negotiations that were underway for fear of looking to favour one side over the other.

Officials told Foote she should only meet with the union’s president to talk about a sweeping review of Canada Post that will look at every aspect of the Crown corporation to see what services it should keep, which ones it should ditch, and whether to keep the community mailboxes that have frustrated homeowners who lost door-to-door mail service.

Canadians could lose almost all of Canada Post’s services as of Friday when the corporation plans to suspend the collective agreement.

Workers would still be on the job and receiving wages and benefits under labour laws, but the contract suspension would give Canada Post the option of triggering a work stoppage by locking out employees.

The union has vowed not to go on strike, creating a stare-down between the two parties with one side waiting for the other to blink.

One business expert says he expects the mail will stop flowing after Friday — it’s just a matter of how long the labour disruption goes on before there’s an agreement, or the government gets involved.

Tom Knight, an associate professor in the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, said it looks like Canada Post is “prepared to pull the trigger on a work stoppage” as neither side is “interested in blinking.”

Already, private courier companies are seeing a bump in business.

A lockout “has the potential to be drawn out because I do believe both sides are quite committed,” said Knight, a labour relations expert.

The sticking points include the union’s proposal for a pay increase for its rural, mostly female carriers. The union says they earn 28 per cent less than their urban, mostly male, counterparts.

Canada Post has said CUPW’s demands are “not affordable” and would add $1 billion in costs over the life of a new contract just as the postal service undergoes a review of operations.

A customer arrives at a Canada Post post office as an ongoing labour dispute between the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and Canada Post continues, on Tuesday, July 5, 2016 in Ottawa. (Justin Tang/CP)

Here’s a not-so-special delivery: Canadians may be forced to prepare for a postal-service disruption as early as Friday. (Maclean’s subscribers, here is what you need to know about your magazine deliveries.) Early Tuesday, Canada Post served a 72-hour lockout notice to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, halting negotiations between the two, and possibly sending postal workers across Canada to the picket line by the end of the week. CUPW and Canada Post have been working on a collective agreement since December, and this latest disruption has to do with the union wanting a pay increase for its rural, female carriers, and Canada Post saying it’s not affordable, especially while the corporation undergoes a government review of its operations—including door-to-door delivery.

Robert Campbell is the president and vice-chancellor of Mount Allison University. He’s authored two books on postal systems, and chaired the committee that reviewed Canada Post’s mandate back in 2008. He spoke to Maclean’s about what the future of postal service in Canada could look like, and how this current labour dispute fits into it.

Q: Can you put this current labour dispute in context with what’s been happening to Canada Post over the past decade or so?

A: I think Canada Post just simply wants this to end the uncertainty. Because it’s not in its business interest to have a long period of uncertainty, even if there’s no strike or lockout. I think the lockout business, and I’m guessing, is just a sign that Canada Post feels that it can’t afford uncertainty, which is almost as damaging as a strike.

The flip side of this is that I don’t, in my heart of hearts, think the union’s in a particularly strong position in terms of having public opinion or anyone else on their side in a labour dispute. How many strikes have you seen around these days? Times are tough, the unemployment rate’s not great, the growth prospect’s not great. I think people understand that the context of Canada Post is one in which it’s not quite a smokestack industry, but it’s a transformative sector in which everyone’s gotta change, for good or for bad, for right or for wrong. I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of sympathy for the union. That’s not to suggest they’re not arguing meritorious things—they have the right to bargain at the table and they have the right to look after their members. But I think that both sides are negotiating from positions of weakness: Canada Post in terms of its exposure in the market, and labour in terms of the fact I don’t think there will be a lot of public sympathy for their position if they went on strike.

Q: If a deal isn’t reached between the union and Canada Post, what does that mean for Canadians?

A: Well, that’s an odd thing. Because there will be an ambivalent, if not schizophrenic, response by Canadians. On the one hand, vast proportions of your readers have exited physical to the digital communications world. For a lot of people who are doing their banking, doing their financial services, their professional work, their communication with people, they’re using digital communications, this will be a bit of a tree falling in the forest. From the perspective of the Canada Post brand, it’s a bad idea to have a whole bunch of people wandering around saying, ‘See? There’s a strike on and nobody notices.’ So that’s the one hand.

On the other hand, there’s a different part of society, perhaps less urban, rural, small-town, small to medium-sized business that still rely on physical communication. It’s part of their lives. Maybe they haven’t exported over to digital yet because they don’t know how to do it, or it’s because it’s too expensive and there’s too much uncertainty. Or they may be in a line of work in which physical communication still makes a lot of sense, whether you’re selling stuff through catalogues or doing internet commerce, or fundraising, in which the physical thing is still more effective than the digital thing.

I think there will be an ambivalent response, and it will put the government in an awkward position if it dragged on, because typically there’s a kind of simple narrative around a strike that a government will then react to. But I’m not sure the narrative here will be so clear cut, one way or the other.

Q: You’ve been quite a strong advocate for Canada Post to remain a public service. What are the downsides of privatization?

A: The merits of the public format, at the moment, is that for Canadians it offers a from-anywhere-to-anywhere kind of approach, at a relatively uniform and accessible price. One just doesn’t know, if you unpack that model, what the service levels will be to outlying areas or small towns. One would not know what would go on with the price that people would have to pay and so on. It may very well be, when you look around the world, at this function being privatized or quasi-privatized, if you look at Holland, or England, or Belgium, these are all well-run postal services that have privatized and the sky has not fallen. But I think they were perhaps more ready; a lot of the questions were sorted out, and the organization of the firm was probably better placed to go the private route. The regulatory models had been experimented with. We don’t really have any sort of regulatory model, a third-party regulation model for post at the moment. We’d have to develop that. I think maybe one or two more stages yet and then maybe we’ll come back and have that discussion.

Q: What is it that needs to happen now to stabilize postal service in Canada, so that we’re not either in the midst of a strike, or the threat of a strike, every few years?

A: I think that would have been a fair comment talking about the ’60s, ’70s, early ’80s, but from say the mid-’90s to now, there hasn’t been a lot of postal disruptions. It’s been reasonably calm. The last thing under Harper lasted a couple of days, and there were a couple of contracts before that where there was a strike. So I would have characterized the labour situation a little bit differently than you have. If you look around the world, there’s been very little postal disruption, partially because, this is just my opinion, the union has been weakened in its ability to negotiate at the table. The market is changing so fast and there’s such shedding of business, it doesn’t really have a strong position in which to bargain. Most unions around the world have been able to sit down with management and try to see what their common interests are in going forward in terms of a changing market. I think of a labour dispute like this as a sign of weakness on the part of the union. I’m not saying that in a pejorative sense, but in a mechanical sense. I think that if they were able to make a case with Canada Post on their terms, they would have been able to do it at the table. So they’re obviously not seeing eye-to-eye on the longer-term health, the future of the postal sector. Whereas in other countries they seem to have been able to get to that point. I’m afraid it’s kind of a, ‘Is there a God?’ quality to what’s being discussed here right now, and I think that’s kind of a dopey debate to be having when you’re losing four, five per cent of your volumes every year.

Q: Where do you see the future of Canada Post headed?

A: I think Canadians have a want-your-cake-and-eat-it kind of approach to things, like we do for most things in life. Hell, I want a wild and crazy life and I want money in my bank. Canadians want a level of service that perhaps they don’t need and I think a lot of people have come to that place, but not enough. I think one of the discussions we have to have in Canada is to say, ‘Look, seriously folks, what do we actually want the post office to do? What are our real needs here? And what are we willing to pay for it?’ Because I think the parade’s gone by on universal daily service, one- or two-day delivery at a cheap price. That’s not going to happen anymore because there’s not enough volume to sustain that. So are we willing to give up home delivery? Are we willing to give up daily delivery? What are we willing to pay for this? That’s number one.

Number two. If you buy something from Amazon, or you buy something online, you’re very often are given a choice of how you want the delivery, right? If you want it for free, we’ll get it to you in seven to 10 days. If you want in three to five days, you pay x, and if you want it in one to two days, you pay y. I think that’s going to be the model. And now with digitization in which every address in the country is kind of unique, I think you’re going to see a lot more one-on-one relationships like that develop between the customer and the provider of the service. And the sellers on Internet commerce are going to want to accommodate that.

]]>https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/why-both-sides-in-the-canada-post-dispute-are-in-bad-positions/feed/7Trudeau not considering back to work legislation for Canada Posthttps://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/trudeau-not-considering-back-to-work-legislation-for-canada-post/
Tue, 05 Jul 2016 16:49:57 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=896625Trudeau says it is not the government's responsibility to be immediately 'heavy-handed'

]]>OTTAWA – The federal government is not considering back-to-work legislation if there is a work stoppage at Canada Post, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday.

Trudeau says his government believes in good-faith negotiations that happen around the bargaining table.

“We don’t feel, unlike previous governments, that it is the immediate responsibility to be heavy-handed,” he said in Montreal on Tuesday. “We respect labour, we respect the need to come to terms at the bargaining table, and that is what we are going to continue to work on.”

Trudeau’s comments came after Canada Post said it has issued a 72-hour lockout notice to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), raising the possibility of labour disruption by Friday.

Canada Post said its latest offer presented on June 25 was fair and reasonable and that it still hoped to negotiate a deal with the union.

But in a statement early Tuesday, Canada Post said it plans to suspend the collective agreement as of Friday. It blamed prolonged negotiations, the union’s strike mandate and the financial cost of a rapid decline in mail volume.

Canada Post said the 72-hour notice does not necessarily mean it will shut down on Friday.

Rather, it said, the measure would allow it to “take measures that are necessary to respond to the changing business reality.”

In its response, CUPW said the corporation is using the lockout notice to drive 50,000 workers “out on to the streets without pay in an effort to impose steep concessions on them.

“They refused to negotiate fairly with us and now they’re locking the doors and will try to starve us into submission,” said CUPW president Mike Palecek.

The company has said the key sticking point in negotiations involves changes to employee pension plans.

The union said Tuesday the issue is pay equity for rural carriers, 70 per cent of whom are women and earn 28 per cent less than their urban, mostly male, counterparts.

The Crown corporation said Monday that CUPW’s demands are “not affordable” and would add $1 billion in costs over the life of a new contract. The union accused Canada Post of preparing to lock workers out, and creating uncertainty by warning the public to avoid the post office.

“They have been lying to the public,” Palecek said at a Tuesday morning news conference in Ottawa.

He said Canada Post turned a $100-million profit last year and appears to be on track for bigger profits in 2016, although the Crown Corporation refuses to open its books to the union.

Canada Post has said that in the event of a full work disruption, it will not operate – mail and parcels will not be delivered, and no new items will be accepted.

The Canada Revenue Agency has deemed Old Age Security, Canada Pension Plan, Working Income Tax Benefit and the Canada Child Benefit cheques “essential” – even during a labour disruption.

Spokesman Jon Hamilton said Canada Post has a memorandum of agreement with the union “where the federal socio-economic cheques will be delivered.”

“In the event of a work disruption we would arrange … delivery one day of the month,” he said Monday.

National President of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers Mike Palecek speaks to reporters to discuss the ongoing labour dispute with Canada Post on Tuesday, July 5, 2016 in Ottawa. (Justin Tang/CP)

OTTAWA – The federal government will stay out of a looming work stoppage at Canada Post for now, putting the onus on the corporation and its largest union to come to an agreement quickly before the mail stops being delivered.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday that his government is not considering back-to-work legislation right away, a change from the former Conservative government’s decision to follow that path in the immediate aftermath of a lockout in 2011.

Trudeau did leave the door open to government involvement if there is a prolonged work stoppage at Canada Post, saying the Liberals didn’t feel it was the “immediate responsibility” of governments “to be heavy-handed” in labour disputes.

“We are a government that believes in good faith negotiations that happen at the bargaining table. That is where these discussions need to be worked out,” Trudeau said in Montreal.

The federal NDP called the Liberal position in the labour dispute disappointing, saying the government was following the same path the Conservatives took in 2011. The party’s labour critics said the Liberals have broken election promises to “end the Conservative-style attempts to discredit and disrupt our postal service.”

A halt in postal services could come as early as Friday if Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Works cannot work out a new collective bargaining agreement for the approximately 50,000 rural and urban mail carriers in the country.

In a statement early Tuesday, Canada Post said it plans to suspend the collective agreement as of Friday. It blamed prolonged negotiations, the union’s strike mandate and the financial cost of a rapid decline in mail volume.

Canada Post said the 72-hour notice delivered to the union does not necessarily mean it will shut down on Friday.

Rather, it said, the announcement would allow the Crown corporation to “take measures that are necessary to respond to the changing business reality.”

For the union, that means its workers are being threatened with a lockout, as CUPW has vowed to not go on strike and stay at the bargaining table.

Canada Post said its latest offer presented on June 25 was fair and reasonable and that it still hoped to negotiate a deal with the union.

The union wants to see a pay increase for its rural, mostly female carriers, who earn 28 per cent less than their urban, mostly male, counterparts to address what CUPW sees as a pay equity issue.

Canada Post has said CUPW’s demands are “not affordable” and would add $1 billion in costs over the life of a new contract as the postal service undergoes a review of operations, including the move away from door-to-door delivery.

CUPW national president Mike Palecek said the Crown corporation turned in a nearly $100-million profit last year and appears to be on track for bigger profits in 2016, although Canada Post has not opened its books to the union.

“We know we’re dealing with an unscrupulous employer. They have no problem lying to the public and they have been untruthful about the real financial situation facing Canada Post for years,” Palecek told a news conference in Ottawa.

A lockout would mean a halt to delivery of mail and parcels, and Canada Post wouldn’t accept any new items to send domestically or abroad. That has left companies fretting about what the impact could be on their business, school workers in Quebec hastily stuffing envelopes with report cards, and the federal government setting up contingency plans.

The Crown corporation and its union have agreed to keep delivering social benefits like old age security, Canada Pension Plan, the working income tax benefit, and the Liberals’ vaunted new Canada Child Benefit, which is set to be delivered for the first time this month.

The payments will be delivered on the 20th of the month.

The majority of those payments aren’t done through the mail. Employment and Social Development Canada said about 95 per cent of employment insurance payments, 96 per cent of CPP payments, and almost 98 per cent of old age security payments are done through direct deposit.

Employment insurance recipients who haven’t or can’t sign up for direct deposit can contact Service Canada at 1-800-206-7218 to ask for a cheque that can be picked up at the nearest Service Canada location.

A Canada Post mailbox is seen near Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Thursday May 5, 2016. The government announced it will review Canada Posts operations. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

OTTAWA — Canada Post says the latest offer it made to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers in the ongoing labour dispute is to be considered final.

In a statement issued on Monday, Canada Post says it still hopes to negotiate a deal with the union representing postal workers, but adds that the June 25 offers “represent a fair and reasonable framework for settlements.”

The Crown corporation says the CUPW’s demands are “not affordable” and would add $1 billion in costs over the contract term.

The union, meanwhile, is accusing Canada Post of preparing to lock workers out, and creating uncertainty by warning the public to avoid the post office.

CUPW says it has been showing up at the bargaining table with proposals to make the post office even more profitable and improve services for businesses and the public.

Neither Canada Post nor CUPW has served a 72-hour notice of intent to strike or lock out, but either can do so at any time.

Changes to employee pension plans have been a key sticking point in negotiations, but Canada Post said the offers contain no changes to the pension for all employees currently in the plan.

Canada Post said in the event of a full work disruption, it will not operate — mail and parcels will not be delivered, and no new items will be accepted.

However, the Canada Revenue Agency has said the CUPW has agreed to deliver Working Income Tax Benefit and the Canada Child Benefit cheques — deemed “essential” — even during a labour disruption.

]]>Canada Post workers make new proposal and hold off strike noticehttps://www.macleans.ca/facebook-instant-articles/canada-post-workers-make-new-proposal-and-hold-off-strike-notice/
https://www.macleans.ca/facebook-instant-articles/canada-post-workers-make-new-proposal-and-hold-off-strike-notice/#commentsSat, 02 Jul 2016 23:48:01 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=895935Employee pension plans are the top sticking point as sides continue to negotiate

The union representing postal workers says it has presented Canada Post with new offers, and workers won’t be striking before Wednesday at the earliest.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers must give 72 hours notice of any job action by its 50,000 members and it hasn’t done so.

Canada Post is also allowed to lock out its workers but it also hasn’t served notice of a lockout.

The two sides both say the number one sticking point in negotiations involves changes to employee pension plans.

Canada Post made new contract proposals a week ago, and on Friday, the union came forward with a counter-offer.

The union is proposing wage hikes, and rejecting Canada Post’s suggestion that new employees get a pension plan that operates like an RRSP, called defined contribution, instead of the defined benefit plan for current employees that guarantees a set level of retirement benefits.

A representative from Canada Post says in a written statement that the union’s proposed plan would add “at least $1 billion” in costs over the next three years.

The statement also says that two other unions representing Canada Post workers have agreed to the pension changes, and only CUPW is holding out.

The two sides were continuing to negotiate, the union said Saturday.

The last time Canada Post experienced a work stoppage was in 2011, which included 10 days of rotating strikes and a lockout before employees were legislated back to work by Ottawa.

]]>As early as Aug. 28, 2016, the delivery of your print copy of Maclean’s may be interrupted or delayed for an unknown duration due to a possible labour disruption at Canada Post. Should a labour disruption occur, we will do our best to deliver any delayed print issues—whether it be a copy held at our printing plant, or one sitting in Canada Post’s mail stream—as quickly as possible, once the disruption has come to an end.

In the meantime, as a subscriber to Maclean’s, you can access the digital edition on your mobile device* right away. If you already have a digital account, just sign-in to the Maclean’s app or your favourite reader and enjoy the latest issue.If you have never activated your digital account, you can do it here now. You will need your subscriber number to create a digital account. If you don’t have it handy, there will be a link on that page that directs you to Maclean’s Customer Care so you can retrieve it. Once your digital account is successfully created, simply follow the sign-in instructions corresponding to your device.

If you have any questions, please contact us at 1-877-558-2325 or at service@rmpublishing.com. Thank you for your patience and for being a loyal Maclean’s reader.

]]>TORONTO – Businesses are warning their customers about the possibility of a strike or lockout at Canada Post that could happen as early as this weekend.

A number of companies including TD Bank, Virgin Mobile and American Express have told their customers not to expect statements in the mail in the event of a labour disruption.

Some are encouraging their customers to pay their bills online if they’re not already doing so and avoid mailing in payments.

Unionized workers at Canada Post can legally go on strike or be locked out as of Saturday if an agreement isn’t reached.

Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) have been in negotiations since December for its 50,000 delivery and plant employees.

The Crown corporation says it tabled new contracts last Saturday, but have yet to hear a response from the union, which must issue a 72-hour notice before going on strike.

On Tuesday, CUPW asked for a two-week extension to give more time for contract negotiations. Canada Post denied the request.

“We’re seeing the impact that the uncertainty is causing in our facilities,” said Jon Hamilton, a spokesman for the postal service.

“The amount of mail, the amount of advertising mail, the number of parcels are already declining. Many of our customers have already put contingency plans in place months ago and have been moving away from Canada Post.”

Canada Post says the main contentious issues relate to changes to pension plans for incoming workers and the hiring of temporary and part-time delivery employees for evenings and weekends.

Hamilton said a work stoppage will result in lost business in an industry that it is already feeling the squeeze from other delivery services and the growth of online payments.

“We understand our customers have businesses to run, and we’ve been trying to give them as much advance notice as one could,” he said.

“Obviously we’re hoping that we can get a deal and continue to operate, but when customers are looking for that certainty and we can’t provide it, they need to make other plans.”

Rivals Purolator and UPS said they are preparing to step in if a Canada Post labour disruption occurs.

Canada Post delivers approximately nine billion letters, parcels and flyers a year, serving nearly 15 million residential and one million business addresses.

The last labour disruption was in 2011, when Canada Post workers went on rotating strikes for 10 days.

]]>OTTAWA — Canadians could find themselves with door-to-door mail delivery again at the end of what the government says will be a sweeping review of every business line at Canada Post.

The federal government unveiled Thursday a four-member panel that will look at the future of the Crown corporation, including whether the national letter carrier should get back into the banking business.

Privatization of Canada Post — in whole or in part — is not on the table, Public Services Minister Judy Foote said.

She said any changes will have to carry a reasonable cost, with the ultimate goal of making Canada Post self-sustaining.

Seniors groups and advocates for the disabled cried foul when Canada Post announced a controversial plan to phase out home mail delivery and switch millions of Canadians to community mailboxes as part of cost-saving measures.

During the election campaign, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau pledged to restore door-to-door delivery. Once in power, he temporarily halted the move to community boxes that was already underway.

“Home delivery, yes. Home delivery in what format in terms of time is another question,” Foote said when asked about the campaign promise.

Related video: PM on Canada Post (Maclean’s town hall)

“I don’t think we specified in terms of home delivery being seven days a week or five days a week. We need to hear from Canadians what it is they need and Canadians are responsible and I think they will understand that it has to be at a reasonable cost.”

The panel will provide an interim report by the end of summer, with final recommendations to be made before year’s end, Foote said. The total cost of the exercise is $2 million.

The postal union has been pushing the banking option as a way for Canada Post to make money.

The postal service ditched its financial offerings in 1968, but the Canadian Union of Postal Workers argues that re-introducing banking at the agency’s more than 6,500 outlets could generate revenue that’s been lost as fewer people send letters.

Foote said the union will have a voice in the review.

The union and Canada Post are in the midst of negotiations on a new collective agreement with a work disruption possible by the summer if the two sides can’t agree on out a new contract.

]]>Canada Post suspends community mail box program, affecting 460,000 homeshttps://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/canada-post-suspends-community-mail-box-program-affecting-460000-homes/
Mon, 26 Oct 2015 21:29:00 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=777805Canada Post has halted the installation of community mailboxes, one week after the Trudeau Liberals were elected with pledge to return to scrap them

]]>OTTAWA – The country’s national mail carrier has halted the installation of community mailboxes, one week after the Trudeau Liberals were elected with a pledge to scrap the move away from door-to-door delivery.

“Canada Post is temporarily suspending future deployment of the program to convert door-to-door mail delivery to community mailboxes,” the Crown agency said in an emailed statement.

The move means nearly half a million households that were to be converted over the next two months will keep their current mail service.

“Efforts are now underway to place the comprehensive program on hold in an orderly fashion,” said the statement.

“Customers impacted by this decision will receive a letter within the next few weeks advising them of the status of their mail delivery service.”

But those already converted over the last 10 months will not get door-to-door service back — at least not under Canada Post’s current plan.

The union representing postal employees said it was elated with the news. But the Canadian Union of Postal Workers will be pushing the Liberal government to reverse the cuts to postal services that have been made so far, said the organization’s national president.

“I think the people of this country spoke quite clearly last Monday,” said Mike Palecek.

“We also need to look at restoring the home mail delivery to those who have already lost it,” Palecek added.

“And we need to look at having a public mandate review for Canada Post about exactly what direction we want this Crown corporation to go.”

CUPW has been pushing Canada Post to expand its business into ventures such as postal banking services, similar to those adopted in other countries including the United Kingdom and France.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau promised during the election campaign to reverse cuts to door-to-door mail delivery that were begun under the Harper Conservative government.

And with the Liberals elected to a majority government, some Liberal MPs said they were getting an earful from constituents who wanted to know why the boxes were still being installed.

There were several localized protests against the installations in Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador, with some people defiantly taking to standing or lying on dirt piles to prevent workers from placing cement foundations for the mailboxes.

Canada Post, however, was adamant that it was moving ahead with the mailbox conversions, telling CUPW late last week — after the election results were known — that it would not back away from the plan. It also placed ads to hire door-to-door canvassers to sell the merits of community mail delivery in British Columbia.

But late Monday, the Crown agency said it would rethink its plan.

“We will work collaboratively with the Government of Canada to determine the best path forward given the ongoing challenges faced by the Canadian postal system,” the corporation said.

Canada Post has been warning for some time that it expects home mail delivery revenues to continue to decline.

It announced in 2013 a plan to phase out door-to-door delivery and cut up to 8,000 jobs, mainly through attrition. The corporation said it handled nearly 1.2 billion fewer pieces of mail in 2013 than in 2006.

Canada Post Group reported in May that letter mail volumes fell 8.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2015, or by 41 million pieces, compared with the same period a year earlier.

At the same time, however, the agency said it recorded a 10-per-cent increase in overall revenues and a before-tax profit of $24 million in the first three months of the year, contrasting with a $37-million loss during the same quarter in 2014.

Canada Post Group includes the Canada Post mail service, Purolator and other businesses.

Duceppe took aim Wednesday at Canada Post, accusing the Crown corporation of being arrogant in bringing in community mailboxes and closing post office counters in rural areas without proper consultation.

The Bloc leader says the process is flawed and does not respect the wishes of municipalities and citizens.

Duceppe is calling for a parliamentary committee to study the matter.

Canada Post says it is committed to moving ahead with its plans _ originally announced in December 2013 _ to gradually reduce home mail delivery and install community mailboxes despite court challenges and calls for a moratorium by various Canadian mayors.

The corporation says it has no choice but to go that route because of a continuing drop in letter volume.

Canada Post converted 100,000 addresses that had door-to-door delivery to community mailboxes in 2014 and plans to convert about 900,000 addresses this year.

Canada Post Group, which includes Canada Post, Purolator and other businesses, had a $198-million net profit in 2014, compared with a $29-million net loss the year before.

In April 1754, five years before New France fell to the British, a birth notice appeared in the Halifax Gazette. The Canadian postman was born at the city’s south gate, in the country’s first post office.

In his youth, he was known more for enthusiasm than efficiency. His preferred mode of transportation was birch-bark canoe and his reliability was sporadic at best. Friends remember one route, upriver and through dangerous terrain, that took 105 days to move mail from Quebec to Halifax.

American uncle Benjamin Franklin, deputy postmaster for North America, intervened with some much-needed direction. He named Scottish-born Hugh Finlay as Canada’s first postmaster, stationed in Quebec City. He organized a weekly postal service between Quebec and Montreal, and a monthly post to New York and on to Falmouth, England. In 1774, Finlay left Canada to replace Franklin, who’d been fired for his questionable role in the upcoming American Revolution.

His absence left the postmen constantly bickering over responsibilities. A successful postal service needed to be directed by one person, Finlay reported—such as himself.

Finlay returned and, under his guidance, the letter carrier flourished. New routes included a stagecoach from Niagara, twice-a-week service from Quebec to Upper Canada, and “a courier between Kingston and York dispatched once a fortnight.” In their prime, the postmen sought freedom and independence from their guardian. Defiant, representatives from the provinces met in Montreal to discuss strategy. Like squabbling siblings, they agreed on a uniform postal rate and the first Canadian stamp (fittingly, a beaver), but each province retained distinct control. (Prince Edward Island was invited to attend, but every family has its black sheep, and it declined.)

The years leading up to Confederation were a golden age for mail service: Prepaid postage that cost a penny per half-ounce wowed users; free home delivery began in Nova Scotia; and mail cars on trains were moving mail faster than ever. Then, in 1871, pre-stamped postcards were introduced and Eaton’s first mail-order catalogue made its debut in 1884.

Increasing demands began to take a toll, and 1918 saw the first strike over pay. Postage fees were up—to almost 10 cents a letter—but wages and bonuses remained the same. The grumbling continued into the 1950s, when all parties agreed to a five-day, 40-hour work week.

Still, the health of the postman began to falter. Airmail service, electronic mail sorting, and bright red mailboxes were introduced. Mail volume had doubled by 1965, when letter carriers again illegally walked off the job in 30 cities. Unable to control the rebellious posties, prime minister Lester Pearson folded to their demands. He even allowed them to wear short sleeves, which were sloppy and unprofessional, but all the rage.

The surly postman, meanwhile, became synonymous with grievance and dissatisfaction. When an Oklahoma postman shot and killed 14 colleagues in 1986, “going postal” entered the public lexicon as shorthand for exploding with violence and rage. TV Guide referred to Seinﬁeld’s Newman, a lazy and incompetent postman, as one of television’s nastiest villains.

Electronic mail signalled the beginning of the end. The World Wide Web went live in 1991 and, though symptoms were at first mild, email proved fatal. “It’s been a steady decline year over year and it’s not going to reverse itself,” Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton reported in October. Even though you can now order one with your face on it, the average Canadian household uses just two stamps a month.

So, facing a projected loss of $1 billion, Canada Post began a five-year plan to eliminate home delivery to five million Canadians beginning this year, with parts of Winnipeg, Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa, Halifax and Oakville, Ont. In 2015, one million Canadians will have to walk to a community mailbox to get their mail; by 2019, the letter carrier will be dead. After 264 years, the postman will never ring twice, or ever again.

New era: Reform-minded Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s inauguration parade in Jakarta; he now leads the world’s third-largest democracyUlet Ifansasti/Getty Images

Good News

The right call

Clearly, the NHL learned some valuable lessons from the NFL’s domestic violence debacle. Instead of ignoring an accusation against one of its stars—or downright lying about it—the NHL chose to suspend that player indefinitely, pending the outcome of his criminal case. Los Angeles Kings defenceman Slava Voynov, a two-time Stanley Cup champion, was arrested on suspicion of “corporal injury to a spouse” and at this point is considered innocent unless proven guilty. But until the legal process runs its course, Voynov has no business being around his team or its fans.

Alternative energy

Lockheed Martin plans to build a working fusion reactor within 10 years. Unlike regular fission reactors that split atoms apart, fusion models force atoms together in a process similar to what happens inside the sun. Though many are understandably skeptical, designing a reactor that can safely and economically harness the energy of a star could usher in a new era of clean and dependable electricity sources. That would be a welcome development for residents of downtown Calgary, who recently went four days without power because of an underground fire.

Silver lining

After a stomach-churning week on global stock markets, it was reassuring to see China’s all-important economy still hanging in there. The country of 1.3 billion posted 7.3 per cent GDP growth in the third quarter, the weakest since the Great Recession, but still a far cry from the devastating plunge some predicted. While rising debt, industrial overcapacity and a slumping property market are issues, China is still adding jobs, and the currency continues to rise against the U.S. dollar. Meanwhile, Hong Kong officials held negotiations this week with pro-democracy protesters who have paralyzed the city’s financial centre—an important first step toward finding a peaceful resolution.

Great escapes

It was a good week for people coming face-to-face with giant sharks. In Maui, a man swimming with his three young sons managed to scare away a massive tiger shark with only his fists and his surfboard. In California, a woman who was tossed from her canoe by a six-foot bluegrey managed to swim back aboard and paddle to safety. It’s safe to assume that neither will be lining up to see Sharknado 3, now in production.

Survivor: A hiker waits to receive the bodies of his colleagues outside a morgue in Kathmandu, Nepal, where they’d been stranded by deadly blizzardsNiranjan Shrestha/AP

Bad News

Know your enemy

It appeared, at first, to be wonderful news: the Nigerian government announced a ceasefire deal with Boko Haram terrorists, saying the militants had finally agreed to release 219 schoolgirls kidnapped in April. But the celebrations proved premature, as questions soon swirled about the identity of the group’s so-called negotiator—an alleged “imposter” based in Saudi Arabia. In the meantime, Boko Haram gunmen seized control of three more villages in the northeastern part of the country, wiping away any truth about a truce. Government officials remain optimistic, promising to continue negotiations. With the right people, we hope.

The truth (inconvenient or otherwise)

Believe what you will about global warming, but one thing is beyond dispute: the Earth is getting hotter. According to new figures released by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the average temperature across the globe in September was 15.72° C—the hottest September in 135 years. It was the fourth monthly record in five months (along with May, June and August) and all signs point to 2014 being the warmest on record. Still not convinced things are heating up? If this year does prove to be the hottest since stats were first kept in 1880, it will continue a recent stretch of record-breaking years: 1995, 1997, 1998, 2005 and 2010.

Blade gunner

Former Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius was finally sentenced in connection with the shooting death of his girlfriend: five years in prison, with the possibility of early release in 10 months. The parents of Reeva Steenkamp—who was gunned down on the other side of a bathroom door after Pistorius supposedly mistook her for an intruder—said their daughter’s killer received “the right sentence.” It’s hard to imagine how 10 months is the right punishment for such recklessness. Even if Pistorius is telling the truth, he had no idea who was in that bathroom. Why open fire?

Snail mail

Thousands of people are walking a bit farther to pick up the mail now that Canada Post has officially begun to scrap door-to-door delivery in some communities. The first phase of the plan—which triggered a cross-country outcry when it was first announced—will affect nearly 100,000 addresses in cities such as Winnipeg, Calgary and Halifax. Thankfully, Maclean’s is available in digital format, saving you a trip to the communal mailbox.

Polio outbreak declared international public health emergency. Outbreaks of polio in Asia, Africa and Middle East have lead the World Health Organization to call for an international response. The outbreak is being blamed on Pakistan, where vaccination campaigns have been disrupted by militant attacks. Residents in Pakistan, Syria and Cameroon are being warned to travel with their vaccination records if they intend to leave their country. There is talk of vaccinating those at airports who are not able to produce records. However, the mass exodus of Syrian refugees into neighbouring countries further complicates the situation. Polio is transmitted through food or water. It mainly affects children and causes paralysis in one in 200 cases. It can also be fatal. Afghanistan, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Israel, Somalia and Nigeria are also countries at risk of another outbreak, says the WHO.

Fighting gets more intense in Russian-held Slaviansk. Fighting between Ukraine and pro-Russian militants continues in the eastern-Ukraine city of Slaviansk Monday. Five Ukrainian policemen were reportedly killed and the militants said four of their fighters were killed. Though violent clashes in Odessa over the weekend, that left 40 dead, are now over, there are fears that tensions could flare again as Friday approaches and as Russians celebrate the anniversary of U.S.S.R.’s victory in WWII.

Harper meets with NATO supreme commander. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with NATO’s U.S. Gen. Philip Breedlove to discuss the situation in Ukraine. Defence Minister Rob Nicholson and Gen. Tom Lawson were also in the meeting. Harper, Nicholson and Lawson did not take questions about the meeting with Breedlove. Canada has already committed six fighter jets and rerouted a frigate to the eastern Mediterranean Sea to aid NATO in eastern Europe. Last week, Harper announced that 50 soldiers from Edmonton would travel to Poland for military exercises.

What to do now that Shawn Atleo is gone? The regional chiefs of the Assembly of First Nations will meet in Ottawa this week to discuss how to replace former chief of the Assembly of First Nations Shawn Atleo, who stepped down unexpectedly Friday afternoon. Atleo stepped down over his position on a controversial federal bill to reform First Nations education. Atleo supported the bill, but many others did not and Atleo said he didn’t want his leadership to distract from the very important bill. Still, Atleo’s decision to step aside is affecting the bill. The First Nations Control of First Nations Education Act, as its known, will be put on hold until the AFN decides what to do about its leadership, Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt said.

Canada Post in the red, again. Canada Post announced Monday that it lost $29 million last year, which isn’t all that bad compared with its $83-million loss in 2012. But, the difference between 2012 and 2013 is attributed mainly to the sale of a large plant in downtown Vancouver. Looking at the actual operations, the Crown corp did even worse last year than in 2012—with a loss of $193 million for 2013, compare to $106 million in 2012. The dismal numbers are no surprise as Canada Post struggles to reorganize in a digital age. In 2013, it announced the impending end of door-to-door mail delivery and a rise in the price of postage.

]]>OTTAWA – Canada Post Corp. lost $29 million last year compared with a loss of $83 million in 2012, helped by the sale of its plant in downtown Vancouver.

Revenue for the Crown corporation, which includes the Canada Post mail and parcel delivery segment, along with majority-owned subsidiaries Purolator, SCI Group and Innovapost, totalled $7.56 billion, compared with $7.52 billion in 2012.

On an operating basis, Canada Post lost $193 million for the year compared with an operating loss of $106 million a year earlier.

Canada Post is in the midst of a massive reorganization including a move to end door-to-door delivery of the mail.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers said Monday that Canada Post needs to create new and better services to turn the business around instead of cutting services.

“This annual report is a clear sign that the present managers of Canada Post need to rethink their plans,” CUPW national president Denis Lemelin said.

The Canada Post mail and parcel business had a loss before tax of $125 million for 2013 on $5.88 billion in revenue. That compared with a loss before tax of $136 million on $5.87 billion in revenue in 2012.

The company said the results came as mail volumes continued to slide, but parcel revenue and volumes grew compared with a year ago.

Parcel revenue was up 7.2 per cent, while parcel volume increased by five per cent.

Purolator reported a profit before tax of $66 million on $1.62 billion in revenue last year compared with a profit before tax of $35 million on $1.63 billion in revenue in 2012.

SCI Group earned a $12-million profit before tax on $179 million in revenue in 2013, up from a profit before tax of $7 million on $162 million in revenue in 2012.

]]>CAMBRIDGE, Ont. – An online petition urging Canada Post to reconsider its decision to end door-to-door delivery in urban centres has garnered more than 120,000 signatures.

The petition was started by Susan Dixon, a mother of two young boys from Cambridge, Ont., on Dec. 15.

“My youngest has cerebral palsy and uses a walker or wheelchair to get around,” Dixon says in the petition. “For me, Canada Post’s decision would mean having to bundle them up and struggle through the snow with a wheelchair just to get our mail.”

Canada Post announced some dramatic changes to its operations last month, including plans to phase out the age-old tradition of home delivery in urban areas. The company said that without postal carriers travelling by foot, it would save a significant amount of money.

“My hope is that they change their minds and really consider what they are going to be doing to people with disabilities,” said Dixon, whose late grandfather — a Second World War veteran — was a mailman.

The petition — posted on the website change.org — draws attention to anyone in Canada who has limited mobility, such as the elderly or disabled, and the possibly dangerous effects this change could have on their lives.

Only 25 people had signed the petition shortly after it was posted last month, but Dixon said the recent Arctic cold that blanketed most of Central and Eastern Canada has likely reminded people how awful the winter months can be — prompting more than 70,000 Canadians to add their signatures between Dec. 19 and Dec. 23.

With the help of organizers at change.org, Dixon said she will soon be bringing the petition to several executives at Canada Post, including chief executive Deepak Chopra and to the Minister of Transportation Lisa Raitt.

“We’re certainly going to watch that (petition) and any feedback that people put forward,” said Jon Hamilton, a spokesman for Canada Post.

“When we hear about Susan and her issues, we hear those loud and clear and we know we need to be sensitive and understanding in our approach to changes,” he said.

“But the status quo is not going to change.”

Hamilton said that Canada Post is trying to maintain service to all Canadians but that they need to find innovative ways to do it in order to remain self-sufficient.

Canada Post had projected an annual loss of $1 billion dollars a year by 2020 if they were to continue with the door-to-door delivery.

Canada Post’s plan to dump door-to-door delivery of letter mail has been sharply criticized for making five million more households trudge, through rain and snow, to community mailboxes in local parks and cul-de-sac entrances. But if the money-losing crown corporation is successful in reinventing itself as the parcel-carrier of choice for online shoppers, all of those hated “superboxes” could suddenly become a key competitive advantage.

Rod Hart, the general manager of parcels and e-commerce, says the plan is to make the new community mailboxes bigger so that smaller packages can be left securely inside, eliminating a major headache for consumers who may not be home when the delivery van arrives. “We’re really reshaping the company to deal with a lot less mail, and to be set up to be as efficient as possible for parcels,” Hart says.

It’s just one of several ideas being thrown around as retailers and shippers race to find a solution to the so-called “last mile” problem that some believe is holding back Canada’s $20-billion e-commerce industry. Despite how effortlessly companies such as Amazon, Target and Home Depot have made it to browse and buy online, the process of delivering all those goods to consumers remains as cumbersome as ever. Shippers generally operate on the same nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday work schedule as the people they are trying to reach, which translates into missed delivery notices and, if you’re particularly unlucky, a long drive to a dingy distribution hub on the outskirts of town.

Some, like Wal-Mart and Best Buy, have pushed the idea of having online purchases shipped to and from nearby stores, where they can be picked up. Others, including Amazon, have suggested consumers pick up their purchases from storage lockers scattered throughout the community, not unlike Canada Post’s proposal. But perhaps the best indication of the immensity of the challenge is Amazon’s scheme to muster an army of unmanned drones to deliver its arrow-adorned boxes—a moon shot if there ever was one. Not to be outdone, Google has dispatched the man behind its Android mobile software to build a fleet of robots, leading some to speculate we’ll one day see Google’s driverless cars delivering parcels.

The problem is a surprisingly complex one to solve, and it’s only becoming more complicated as retailers, in a bid to win customers, promise free shipping or same-day shipping on certain items—the latter being described by some in the logistics business as the industry’s white whale. That’s because of the difficult economics involved and the potential for retailers to drive themselves mad trying to figure out a way to surmount them. “The challenge is that consumers want cheap and fast—actually, free and fast,” Hart says. But, unlike the web, with its unlimited shelf space and marginal operating costs, the shipping business is still mired in a world of polyester uniforms, gas-guzzling delivery vans and snarled traffic, threatening to leave retailers’ e-commerce dreams to die on the doorstep of their customers.

The recent holiday season offered a snapshot of how badly things can go wrong. In the U.S., a last-minute flurry of online purchases by shoppers left UPS and FedEx swamped. Many packages did not make it to their destinations before Dec. 25, as promised. While the blame was placed on bad weather in some parts of the country and an unexpected spike in demand brought on by a shorter-than-usual holiday shopping season, that’s cold comfort for all those retailers who are being forced to make amends with angry customers by offering vouchers and gift cards. “For a company like Amazon, which does everything possible to please the customer, if the final leg of the supply chain is broken, you’ve got to wonder what’s going through their minds,” says Marc Wulfraat, the president of MWPVL International, a Montreal-based logistics consulting firm. “I think they want to gain control of this final piece of the supply chain.”

Indeed, the world’s biggest online retailer has already taken some tentative steps in this direction. A few years ago, it rolled out metal storage lockers at 7-Elevens, drugstores and convenience stores in various U.S. cities. Consumers pick a locker to have their items shipped to, and are then emailed a special code that can be used to access it. Other companies offering a similar service include Swapbox and Waterloo’s BufferBox, which was bought by Google last year.

Peter Sheldon, an analyst with Forrester Research, says the locker idea is an attempt to level the playing field with big bricks-and-mortar retailers such as Wal-Mart, which were once thought to be ill-suited for online commerce because of their vast networks of expensive stores. These days, however, all that pricey real estate is becoming a valuable asset. “Retailers used to be able to fill orders only from one web-fulfillment centre, so, if that was in Ontario and the customer was in Vancouver, it could take a long time,” Sheldon says. “Now, a lot of retailers are investing in the capacity to ship from their stores. They’re turning the little staff canteens in the back into a pick-and-pack area.”

It’s not just a U.S. phenomenon. Canadian Tire will roll out a new online site later this year that will focus on shipping to stores. Other Canadian retailers who offer in-store pickup, according to Forrester, are Aldo Shoes, Chapters, Future Shop and Mountain Equipment Co-op. While Canada generally lags the U.S. in online shopping—online sales currently account for about 5.7 per cent of retail sales in Canada compared to 8.4 per cent in the U.S.—Forrester nevertheless predicts that will increase to about eight per cent of all retail sales by 2018. The research firm says the chief culprits holding back e-commerce in Canada are more expensive shipping (thanks to Canada’s vast territory and sparse population) and retailers’ relatively slow embrace of the opportunities.

As an e-commerce pioneer, Amazon is seeking to maintain its lead by once again attempting to raise the bar when it comes to customer service. “Amazon is trying to compete with same-day delivery,” Sheldon says. To make that possible, it’s continuing to invest billions in building out its sprawling network of 96 warehouses, or fulfillment centres, which are located near major cities around the world, including in Canada. But offering same-day deliveries requires more than locating the merchandise within a few hours’ drive of a customer’s home. “No one has been successfully able to service retail customers from a distribution centre on a same-day basis,” says Wulfraat. He cites the example of Peapod, a U.S. grocery delivery service. It charges customers in Manhattan about US$7 to deliver their groceries from a warehouse a few kilometres away. “You can take the same package, throw it on a UPS truck in Louisville, Ky. (the shipper’s global air hub more than 1,000 km away), and it will get there the next day for $4,” Wulfraat says. Another familiar example comes from the automotive world. “When you go to get your car repaired, the guy comes out and informs you that you’ve got a broken widget, but it will be fixed by noon, even though someone has to get the part from a distribution centre somewhere,” Wulfraat says. “But ever notice how you always feel like you’re getting gouged?”

A similar feeling is likely to be generated by Canada Post’s same-day delivery pilot project, launched last fall. The mail carrier is promising delivery by 9 p.m. for customers in Toronto who make online orders from Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Future Shop and Indigo before certain cut-off times, ranging from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The price is $13.95 per delivery. “If you really need it the same day, you’re more likely to jump in the car and just get it,” Sheldon says, citing a recent Forrester survey that only about 14 per cent of consumers consider unavailability of same-day shipping to be a deal-breaker when shopping online.

The key to any same-day service is generating sufficient consumer demand. If more people get in the habit of making daily online orders, the price to deliver each package should become more competitive. (Some believe this is why Amazon continues to experiment with the idea of grocery deliveries in American cities.) In the meantime, Canada Post is planning to deploy a range of parcel delivery options, including home delivery, pickup at one of 6,000 postal outlets across the country, and the new, larger-sized community mailboxes. “Our research shows Canadians want more choice in how and when they receive things,” Hart says. So far, Canada Post isn’t considering adding unmanned drones to that list—at least, not for the foreseeable future—but Hart stresses that the mail carrier isn’t among those who are dismissing Amazon’s proposal as crazy talk. “It makes you think about what’s possible,” he says. “It communicates to us that maintaining the status quo simply isn’t going to cut it.”

Consumer demand: The shipping business is still mired in a world of polyester uniforms, gas-guzzling delivery vans and snarled traffic

The invisible hand of the market isn’t the only thing that’s going to shape the economy next year. Here are five factors in Canada’s continuing economic recovery.

1. John Chen

To say a lot is riding on Chen’s shoulders in 2014 would be the greatest understatement in corporate Canada. BlackBerry’s new chief executive must prove to investors (and potential buyers) within the next few months there’s something worth saving. For BlackBerry to survive intact Chen must halt its market-share slide, refocus the company on its enterprise business and slash the workforce to manageable levels, all while out-innovating much larger rivals. It’s far more likely BlackBerry will cease to exist sometime in the next year, having been bought out, broken up, or gone bust.

2. Canada Post

The writing is on the mailbox. Before 2014 is out, Canada Post Group will face an existential crisis. Plummeting mail volumes led the Crown corporation to lose $129 million in the third quarter, while facing a $5.9-billion solvency deficit in its employee pension plan. The company said it will need financial aid (read: a bailout) from the Harper government to help restructure its business. Riiiiiiiight. Expect instead for Ottawa to steer it down the path of Britain’s Royal Mail (led, incidentally, by former Canada Post CEO Moya Greene). The U.K.’s 500-year-old postal service was privatized and raised $2.8 billion in an IPO in November. It’s unlikely investors will be as eager for a piece of a broken Canada Post.

Editor’s note: This prediction has already come true, at least in part. Less than a week after the magazine with this prediction went to print, Canada Post announced a cost-cutting plan that includes the end of door-to-door mail delivery. But will the drastic changes to Canada Post go far enough to take the Crown corp into the digital age? Charlie Gillis examines that question over here.

3. Stephen Elop

Once a rising star at Microsoft, the Ancaster, Ont.-native left to turn around Nokia. There he talked about the need to leap away from the company’s “burning platform” and embrace Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system. Those who accused Elop of being a Trojan Horse sent from Redmond, Wash., felt vindicated when he negotiated a deal to sell Nokia’s handset business to Microsoft in September. Days earlier Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer announced his retirement from a company that itself has lost its way. Elop is now seen as one of two top candidates to replace Ballmer at Microsoft’s helm (Ford CEO Alan Mullally is the other). If Elop gets the nod, it will be one of the highest perches any Canadian has ever reached in corporate America.

Sean Kilpatrick/CP

4. National securities regulator

After a defeat at the Supreme Court, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s bid to establish a national securities regulator switched gears. B.C. and Ontario agreed to pass uniform securities rules yet maintain control over their markets. It’s hoped other provinces will follow suit. Ottawa wants to launch the new regulator by 2015, meaning the provinces must pass their legislation by December 2014. Expect hyperbolic opposition from Quebec along the way.

5. Exchange rates

A big question facing the global economy next year is whether conflict will break out—not with guns, but with currencies. In times of sluggish growth weak currencies are seen as a quick fix to boost exports, which suddenly are cheaper for other countries to buy. That is, until those countries drive down their currencies. The European Central Bank’s rate cut in November, followed by Thailand’s and similar moves by the Czech Republic, have many worried the world is on the cusp of a massive currency war. Given the delicate state of the recovery, it would be mutual assured destruction for all involved.

]]>https://www.macleans.ca/politics/five-things-that-will-shape-canadas-economy-in-2014/feed/5In the U.S. Congress, a cheer for the end of home mail delivery in Canadahttps://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/in-the-u-s-congress-a-cheer-for-the-end-of-home-mail-delivery-in-canada/
https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/in-the-u-s-congress-a-cheer-for-the-end-of-home-mail-delivery-in-canada/#commentsThu, 19 Dec 2013 11:24:01 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=450059WASHINGTON – The announced demise of home mail delivery in Canada has prompted a celebratory reaction from one U.S. lawmaker, who longs to see his own country adopt a similar…

]]>WASHINGTON – The announced demise of home mail delivery in Canada has prompted a celebratory reaction from one U.S. lawmaker, who longs to see his own country adopt a similar reform to end residential postal service.

Last week’s news had Republican congressman Darrell Issa issuing a statement saying he “applauded” Canada for applying a principle found in his own bill to overhaul the United States Postal Service.

“As technology advances, the Canadian people are changing the way they use paper mail. Canada Post has recognized this reality and responded to it. The Canadian government is supportive of its decision to modernize,” said the California representative.

“The American people have also changed the way they use paper mail and the cash-strapped United States Postal Service must respond accordingly.”

Americans are grappling, like their neighbours to the north and more distant nations around the planet, with ways to reform the post office in an era of technology-driven disruption of traditional business models.

Other countries have introduced drastic changes.

Just last week, it was announced that shares of the U.K.’s Royal Mail would be listed on the FTSE 100 after they had surged in their first two months as a publicly traded entity.

The Germans introduced sweeping reforms a quarter-century ago, pushed along by the need to merge two postal systems amid reunification and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In that flurry of activity they privatized the Deutsche Post. Technology was modernized, property was sold off. Nearly all public post offices were closed, with parcel collection-shifting to shops, banks, and even private homes. And the post office purchased DHL, the logistics and delivery company.

There’s still service six days a week. Digital bills are sent out, and people can decide whether they’d prefer paper copies. Delivery drones are being tested.

And Deutsche Post has seen its share price increase 50 per cent over the last year, with profits beating analyst expectations.

Meanwhile, political initiatives in the U.S., including Issa’s, have struggled to gain traction. Part of the problem is the dizzying, often-conflicting array of visions of what a 21st-century postal system might look like.

Different bills before Congress merely scratch the surface of those possibilities.

Issa’s House bill would end home delivery as one of its dozen major provisions. In the Senate, another bill would try enticing homeowners to opt out on a voluntary basis. Both would address the onerous pension requirements slapped on the U.S.P.S. a few years ago — a 75-year pre-funding plan that has pushed the post office closer to insolvency.

Amid the struggle, the U.S.P.S. has adopted innovations, such as a deal to carry packages for Amazon.com on Sundays. It has created a “Last Mile” program to deliver items collected by private companies.

It has also considered major cuts, including the threat to close 3,700 post offices a couple of years ago. Congress, which essentially controls the institution, blocked the plan.

A paper this year by U.S. experts called for a very different reform than the simple closing of offices, or elimination of home delivery. In fact, it even touted home delivery as a possible core function of a modern post office.

What it suggested was a public-private partnership. First, private businesses would collect the mail, and compete with each other in seeking innovative ways and new places to gather it. Then, U.S.P.S. letter-carriers would pick up those same parcels at distribution points and continue on their normal routes to deliver them as always to individual homes, through rain, sleet or snow.

What’s most important is that the post office be freed by regulators and allowed to experiment with solutions based on market demand, said one of the authors of the study, “Restructuring the U.S. Postal Service,” co-written by a former deputy postmaster general, a former Postal Rate Commission chair, an ex-official at the National Association of Letter Carriers, and a former congressional economist and expert on postal services.

Is home delivery best maintained, cancelled, or adjusted to some a la carte model?

“I don’t know. That’s the whole point of a free market,” one of the authors, economist Ed Hudgins, said in an interview.

“People sit around with their own money figuring out, ‘Should we buy more trucks to bring stuff to the door? Should we build drones … would that be a cheaper way to do it?’ I don’t know. (With) a free market, you get people sitting around dreaming this stuff up.”

He said it’s foolish for government regulators to try mapping out rigid, long-term plans for the post office in an era of uncharted technological possibilities.

Just a few years ago, he said, they would have missed the potential of the smartphone. Now, says the former NASA intern, those little phone machines carry more computing power than the Apollo vehicles.

Next, with Amazon planning to build mail-drones, 3D printing no longer science fiction, and countless other innovations on the horizon, he said it’s impossible to predict what mail-delivery needs might be a few years from now.

One writer at Time magazine looked longingly at Canada Post’s ability to reform itself.

He referred to the shared history of the countries’ postal services. In the 1750s, Benjamin Franklin worked to build both systems as a British North American official before he went on to become a revolutionary hero.

“But they’re different in one very important way: Unlike the U.S.P.S., which is tethered to Congress like a dog on a leash, Canada Post doesn’t have to come running to Parliament every time it wants to make fundamental business decisions,” said the piece by Josh Sanburn.

“Canada Post has a mandate from the federal government to fund its operations through revenue from products and services and not from taxpayer money.”

Hudgins said he hopes more countries follow the example of Germany and the U.K., and show some creativity. As for his own country, the U.S., he said deeper reform is inevitable there, too.

“There are similar challenges that all countries around the world face,” he said.

“I think most people see the handwriting on the wall. So whether it comes this year, or next year, the pressures are there and they’re only getting bigger.”

How do Canadians feel about service cuts at Canada Post? Depends on how they receive their mail now—and evidently, how they vote.

An Angus Reid Global poll released today found that 58 per cent of respondents disapprove of changes that, among other things, would see door-to-door service eliminated for the one-third of customers lucky enough to still get it (full results and methodology can be found here). Overall, we appear rueful about these reforms to a national institution. Drill down, though, and you get some telling results:

• More than half of Conservative voters, 53 per cent, support the end of door-to-door in urban areas, while less than a third of Liberal and NDP supporters do.

• Fully 59 per cent of respondents who already pick up their mail at community mailboxes support the changes. I’ll be the cynic and suggest that these two findings are not unrelated: the Tories are strongest in suburban and rural ridings. Suburban and rural residents aren’t losing much from the end of door-to-door. You don’t suppose the government-appointed bosses at Canada Post took that into account when they hatched this plan, do you?

• Only 48 per cent of those polled consider Canada Post to be an “essential service” and even these believers aren’t using it much; 72 per cent said they send mail less often than four times a month. Two in five do so less than once a month.

• Men seem a lot less worried about mail service than women. Of the 17 per cent of respondents who said they were unaffected and unconcerned by the changes, fully 73 per cent were men. Nearly six in 10 who consider Canada Post an essential service are women. These findings should not surprise guys like me, who haven’t sent a birthday card since the Chrétien years.

• Some 38 per cent of respondents said Canada Post should be privatized, which strikes me as a lot.

In short, even a lot of those angry about the reforms aren’t using the mail enough to make this a ballot-box question in the next federal election. Those affected probably aren’t living in Tory-held ridings, meaning the moves are unlikely to cost the Harper government seats. As Shachi Kurl, vice-president of Angus Reid Global, put it: “These changes appear to give Prime Minister Stephen Harper less trouble with his base.”

All very revealing—though you have to think the political implications were well understood before the first letter of the plan was written.

]]>https://www.macleans.ca/general/canada-post-ceo-defends-cuts-to-service-higher-rates/feed/4Conservatives to limit study of cuts to mail deliver proposed by Canada Posthttps://www.macleans.ca/general/conservatives-to-limit-study-of-cuts-to-mail-deliver-proposed-by-canada-post/
https://www.macleans.ca/general/conservatives-to-limit-study-of-cuts-to-mail-deliver-proposed-by-canada-post/#commentsWed, 18 Dec 2013 16:52:35 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=449882OTTAWA – The head of Canada Post will make his first public comments today about the Crown corporation’s plans to raise postal rates and cut service.
Deepak Chopra is among…

]]>OTTAWA – The head of Canada Post will make his first public comments today about the Crown corporation’s plans to raise postal rates and cut service.

Deepak Chopra is among the witnesses expected to appear at a special Commons committee studying the proposals.

Canada Post announced last week that it plans to phase out door-to-door mail delivery in urban centres.

Instead, mail would be delivered to communal neighbourhood “superboxes.”

The government hopes to limit today’s study of the changes to just three hours.

The Conservatives have invited a number of people to speak at the meeting, including Chopra, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, the Conference Board of Canada, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Council of Canadians with Disabilities.

The list of potential participants also includes the CD Howe Institute, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and Robert Campbell from Mount Allison University.

The New Democrats say they want to hear from the transport minister, as well as small business, charity and seniors groups, among others.

And they say three hours is not enough time to study how the major service cuts and higher postage rates will affect mail delivery.

]]>https://www.macleans.ca/general/conservatives-to-limit-study-of-cuts-to-mail-deliver-proposed-by-canada-post/feed/3Van Loan likens Canada Post cuts to time trash pickup was kicked to curbhttps://www.macleans.ca/general/van-loan-likens-canada-post-cuts-to-time-trash-pickup-was-kicked-to-curb/
https://www.macleans.ca/general/van-loan-likens-canada-post-cuts-to-time-trash-pickup-was-kicked-to-curb/#commentsThu, 12 Dec 2013 18:22:53 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=448521OTTAWA – Government House leader Peter Van Loan is striking back at critics of Canada Post’s planned service cuts, comparing them to wealthy big-city dwellers who complained about having to…

]]>OTTAWA – Government House leader Peter Van Loan is striking back at critics of Canada Post’s planned service cuts, comparing them to wealthy big-city dwellers who complained about having to lug their trash to the curb.

The Crown corporation says it will phase out door-to-door mail delivery in Canada’s urban centres as a way to stem rising financial losses — a move that would also slash thousands of jobs.

The plan to deliver mail to communal neighbourhood “superboxes” impacts about one-third of all Canadian households.

Van Loan, who summoned reporters to trumpet the government’s accomplishments during the now-ended fall session of Parliament, says most of his constituents get their mail from superboxes and it presents no big deal.

He says it reminds him of a time when residents of Toronto’s ritzy Rosedale neighbourhood complained about spending cuts that forced garbage collectors to stop coming up their driveways to collect the trash.

Van Loan says most Canadians are already getting their mail from superboxes and that Canada Post made the decision after consulting with customers.

“I am reminded of a time when the city of Toronto was going through some rationalization and trying to figure out how to deliver services,” he said.

“The good people of Rosedale did not like the idea (that) no longer would the garbage man come up to the side of the house to take the garbage, it was going to have to be like it was for everybody else in the country, they would have to get it at the end of the driveway.”

The Canada Post announcement came Wednesday, one day after the House of Commons rose for its holiday break.

Rural residences — a big Conservative constituency — will be spared from the latest service cuts.

Transport Minister Lisa Raitt, who is responsible for the post office, says Canadians are sending fewer letters and parcels than ever, leaving the Crown Corporation with no choice but to make tough decisions.

]]>https://www.macleans.ca/general/van-loan-likens-canada-post-cuts-to-time-trash-pickup-was-kicked-to-curb/feed/28Need to know: Canada Post’s bold plan lands with a thudhttps://www.macleans.ca/uncategorized/need-to-know-canada-posts-bold-plan-lands-with-a-thud/
https://www.macleans.ca/uncategorized/need-to-know-canada-posts-bold-plan-lands-with-a-thud/#commentsThu, 12 Dec 2013 14:21:51 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=448219How did the postal service let it get so bad, and why isn't the government speaking up?

The story
Yesterday, Canada Post announced a five-point plan to regain its fiscal footing. The company’s in a bad place, slated to lose $1 billion in 2020 if the status quo prevails. Change is afoot, and the postal service plans to cut home delivery to five million households and increase the price of stamps. The news hit with a thud.

The reviews came in immediately, and they were roundly negative: How can a postal service with a near monopoly lose so much money? How can the company’s solution be to cut service and increase rates? Why doesn’t it know where the community mailboxes of the future will fit into cramped cities? What happens to seniors who could be adversely affected by the change? Why didn’t the Conservative government, or any Conservative politician, speak up about Canada Post’s uncertain future?

The Tories were almost silent on the matter. Transport Minister Lisa Raitt, who’s responsible for Canada Post and didn’t take interviews yesterday, did release a statement that lauded the postal service’s plan. “The Government of Canada supports Canada Post in its efforts to fulfil its mandate of operating on a self-sustaining financial basis in order to protect taxpayers, while modernizing its business and aligning postal services with the choices of Canadians,” she said. “I look forward to seeing progress as Canada Post rolls out its plan for an efficient, modern postal service that protects taxpayers and is equipped to meet Canadians’ needs now and in the future.”

There’s some wiggling room in that statement, just in case Raitt needs to respond to a public uproar over specific service changes—if it ever comes, which, despite yesterday’s initial harumphing, is not a sure thing. Still, so many questions remain.

The stat6,000-8,000: The number of jobs that will disappear as Canada Post implements its five-point plan

The quote
“This is a government trying to minimize what they know is bad news.” —Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau

What you might have missed

THE NATIONAL

Sweeteners. Researchers discovered that the Grand River, which runs through southern Ontario, including the cities of Kitchener-Waterloo and Cambridge, is full of sweeteners from soft drinks. Humans don’t digest the chemicals, and they eventually reappear in drinking water.

THE GLOBAL

Uruguay. The International Narcotics Control Board says Uruguay’s historic decision to legalize marijuana violates the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, a treaty that limits the use of pot to medicinal or scientific purposes because of its “dependence-producing potential.”

]]>OTTAWA – The demise of door-to-door mail delivery in Canada’s urban centres loomed large over a dormant Parliament Hill on Wednesday as critics denounced the timing of a bombshell decision that Conservatives defended as a necessary evil.

Day 1 of the House of Commons holiday break was only hours old when Canada Post abruptly announced it planned to phase out door-to-door urban delivery, slash jobs and dramatically increase the price of stamps.

As many as 8,000 jobs are on the line due to the cuts, which are expected to impact a third of all Canadian households. Rural residences will be spared.

“There are really serious concerns being raised about this and yet we have the government announcing it after the House is adjourned, and that tells you everything you want to know about how they think Canadians are going to react,” said NDP MP Peter Julian.

“It’s profoundly disrespectful to Canadians and disrespectful to Parliament …. They’re trying to shuffle this off and I think Canadians will be profoundly appalled about the cuts in services and cuts in jobs across the country.”

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau was equally disdainful.

“The timing is a demonstration of a tremendous level of cynicism by this government,” Trudeau said.

“This is a government trying to minimize what they know is bad news as they announce that Stephen Harper is offering less postal services for more money from consumers in the coming years.”

Transport Minister Lisa Raitt said her government supports Canada Post’s decision, noting it has had a mandate to operate on a self-sustaining basis since 1981. The Crown corporation says its five-point cost-cutting plan is aimed at returning the company to financial stability by 2019.

Canadians are sending fewer letters and parcels than ever, leaving Canada Post with no choice but to enact some tough financial measures in an effort to combat a steep decline in revenues, Raitt said.

A typical Canadian household buys only one to two dozen stamps a year, and mail volumes have continued to plummet, having fallen nearly 25 per cent per household since 2008, she added.

“The government of Canada supports Canada Post in its efforts to fulfil its mandate of operating on a self-sustaining financial basis in order to protect taxpayers, while modernizing its business and aligning postal services with the choices of Canadians,” Raitt said in a statement.

She adds she is looking forward to “seeing progress” as Canada Post rolls out its cost-cutting plans.

But Trudeau said the decision doesn’t appear to be based on any in-depth study of its potential impact, and wasn’t preceded by any meaningful discussion with customers.

“The consultation that Canada Post apparently did is singularly lacking in metrics, in numbers — it’s basically anecdotal,” he said.

“We need to make sure that Canadians are being properly served by an institution like Canada Post, and that will require a little more robust discussion and study than this government has actually taken on.”

Green party Leader Elizabeth May was also critical.

“Canada Post claims to be listening to Canadians, yet I’ve yet to hear anyone tell me that they no longer want letters delivered to their homes,” she said.

“This decision will disproportionately affect the elderly and Canadians living with disabilities, for whom home delivery of letters and parcels provides a critical link.”

Denis Lemelin, the national president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), said the Canada Post announcement is a call to all Canadians to stand up and fight for their postal service. He called the changes “the end of an era.”

“We recognize that Canada Post needs to change, but this is not the way to change — to cut, cut and cut,” Lemelin told a news conference in Ottawa.

Lemelin added he doesn’t know of any other developed countries without door-to-door mail delivery in urban centres.

He also said the hike in the price of stamps will drive even more customers away from Canada Post. Stamps, now 63 cents, will be 85 cents as of March 31 when purchased in a booklet, or a dollar if bought individually.